Still Lake - Anne Stuart [45]
It wasn’t very effective. She couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark lenses, but his mouth curved in a faint, cool smile. “Young and foolish enough to think I’m hot?” he repeated. “I guess you don’t consider yourself young and foolish.”
“Not really.” There was a slight quaver in her voice, one she hoped he didn’t notice. The only way she could escape from this situation was to show no fear. His long legs were brushing up against her skirt, and she could feel the warmth of his body in the cool air. Too close. Much too close.
“Then why are you so skittish around me? If I didn’t know better I’d say you were downright terrified.”
She didn’t move. Not that she could, with his arms trapping her against the hard steel of the car. So much for showing no fear, she thought helplessly. It would be a waste of time to deny it. “You just make me nervous,” she said after a moment.
“Do I? Is it just me, or is it all men?”
She would have shoved him, but shoving him would have meant touching him, and if she did that he might not move, and then what would she do, with her hands on him? “I don’t like being pinned against a car out in the middle of nowhere,” she said in her coldest voice.
“Yes, but it’s a classic Jaguar XJ6,” he mocked her. “Surely that makes up for the indignity. And you’ve been skittish since I first saw you. Why are you afraid of me? What do you think I’ve done?”
His question startled her. “Absolutely nothing. I just don’t like—”
“Men in general? Or just me?”
Her fear was abating, just a little, replaced by justifiable anger. “I sure as hell don’t like you,” she said. “Now, let me go.”
“Convince me,” he said in a low voice.
“What?”
“Convince me,” he said again. And to her absolute horror he leaned down to kiss her.
It was just as well she had the car behind her and his arms on either side of her. Otherwise she might have slid to the ground in complete astonishment. She tried to duck, but he caught her face in his hands, holding her still as he brought his mouth down on hers, a slow, deliberate kiss, openmouthed, wet, thorough.
She closed her eyes. She told herself it was because there was nothing else she could do, no way to escape, and she didn’t want to look at him. He pulled her arms around his waist and she held on, absorbing the feel of his body pressed up against hers. Hard, strong body, wet mouth, hands that held her and wouldn’t let her go.
And she didn’t want to escape. She wanted to be kissed in the sunlight by a gorgeous man. She just wanted some other man, not this complicated creature who had more secrets than she could even begin to imagine.
But it didn’t matter what her brain wanted. Her body, her mouth, her soul wanted him, and she heard a quiet little sound of desire and knew that it had come from her.
He stopped kissing her, but he didn’t move away, his hips pinning her against the car, his hands still cradling her face. She opened her eyes, dazed, to look up into his unreadable face, shielded by the dark glasses, and she wondered if he made love with his glasses on. And then she realized she was clinging to him, her arms tight around his lean waist, and she slid them up to push him away.
He didn’t budge, just looked down at her. “So that’s not it,” he said obscurely.
“Let go of me.”
“In a minute.” His voice was lazy, provocative, and he kissed her again. And this time she kissed him back.
He slid his hands behind her, pulling her up against him, and she could feel his erection. It should have startled, even disgusted her. Instead she arched her hips against his, rubbing, needing. He reached behind her, fumbling for the car door. “Get in the back seat,” he said in a husky voice, his other hand starting to pull her skirt up her leg.
Reality came crashing down. He wasn’t expecting her to shove, and it took him off balance, so that he fell back from her. She sprinted around to the passenger side before he could grab her again, jumped in the car and quickly