First Time Lucky?. Natalie Anderson

she dismissed him instantly. Dismissing the outrageous invite on the tip of her tongue too. ‘Do you know the price of each one of those bottles? It’s mine, all mine.’

      He chuckled and looked back at the fridge. ‘And V, what’s that one for?’

      Damn, she’d hoped he might have forgotten about that last one. She swallowed, wished her addled brain would come up with something—anything to get her out of this embarrassment.

      ‘Victory?’ he asked.

      ‘Yeah.’ She nodded enthusiastically. So not going to admit to this guy that the last bottle of Bollinger was for when she finally lost the virginity she’d been dragging round for far too long. ‘For when the Knights win the trophy.’

      ‘You drink champagne all the time?’

      Uh, try never before last night. ‘On special occasions.’

      He closed the fridge and eyed her, looking serious now. ‘Mind if I ask you a personal question?’

      ‘Go right ahead.’ She waited, wondered.

      ‘How old are you?’

      She hadn’t expected that. ‘Twenty-two.’

      His mouth thinned.

      ‘That surprises you?’ Unpleasantly? Why was he looking so unimpressed?

      ‘I thought you were younger.’ He swallowed.

      Uh-huh. ‘How young?’

      ‘Eighteen or so.’

      At the most, she reckoned. What was with the putting her in a child’s box? ‘Well, how old are you?’

      ‘Thirty-one.’

      ‘There’s less than a decade between us,’ she pointed out with extreme pleasure.

      ‘I’m still a lot older than you.’ He seemed determined to labour that one.

      ‘Yeah, but you’re hardly old enough to be my father. Unless, of course, you were very advanced for your age,’ she taunted softy, pleased to see him wince in horror.

      ‘I was very advanced for my age in some areas,’ he said, quickly reverting back to his blunt arrogance. ‘But, no, I was nice and normal and didn’t start fooling around ‘til my teens.’

      She gritted her teeth. A nice, normal teen life. She hadn’t had that. She didn’t resent the reasons why she hadn’t, she had loved caring for her grandparents, but it was time now for her to have the freedom and fun she’d missed out on as an eighteen-year-old. Not to mention the fooling around. Better late than never and she was damn well determined it wouldn’t be never. Maybe it could be soon. ‘Well, as you now know, I’m more than old enough to be living on my own, in any way I like, drinking whatever I want.’ And she’d do whatever she wanted too.

      There was a moment’s silence. He glanced at the fridge again. ‘Do you eat anything?’

      She knew he’d noticed the lack of oven. But there was the microwave and a single gas ring. Okay, she was pretty much camping. But it wasn’t for ever and it was worth it. ‘I usually make a salad or something.’

      ‘From the garden big enough to feed a small island nation?’ He turned away, his smile twisting. ‘Well, make sure you eat a load tonight and don’t have the champagne, given you’ve had those pills.’

      She followed him to the door and leaned against the jamb, well aware that as she lifted her hand her tee shirt rose higher. Sure enough, she saw his eyes dart down. Her thighs burned, not because of the bee. She brushed her hair back from her face with her other hand and watched his gaze flicker first to her hair, then to her chest where her tee shirt had tightened across her braless breasts. Emboldened she answered him softly, full of feminine taunt. ‘Gabe, I thought we’d just established that I’m not a child.’

      His gaze shot to her eyes, intensified—the black pupils expanding to obliterate any hint of the molten colour. The muscles in his jaw were delineated as he clamped his mouth shut. Then he suddenly drew breath. ‘You might not be a child, Roxie, but you are a bit too much of a babe for comfort.’

      Roxie froze, her body so hot she was on the brink of incineration.

      His gaze swept over her one last time before he turned away. ‘So I think it’s best we steer clear of each other.’

      She watched him take the stairs three at a time as if he was escaping some terrible threat. She went back into her studio and smiled. In so many ways Gabe Hollingsworth was a challenge. And Roxie, for all her inexperience, had never backed down from a challenge.

      Not even the most impossible.