Shocked by her thoughts, she tried to shake them away, feigning an interest in his truck to try and restore some sense of propriety in herself, grappling for equilibrium.
‘Did this thing come with the house?’ she queried in a tight, strained voice, slapping the grimy, battered bonnet. ‘Or did you have to buy it?’
‘It’s mine,’ Leonidas answered, taking a breath from quenching his thirst and watching her from under the thickness of his dark lashes.
‘Perhaps it’s time you bought a new one,’ she suggested cheekily, amused, deciding that it wasn’t only the tyre that needed changing. The bodywork looked as if it wouldn’t object to a lick of fresh paint either.
‘Perhaps it’s time you stopped having a laugh at my expense.’
Was that what she was doing? ‘I’m sorry.’ Seeing his eyes darkening, quickly Kayla strove to suppress her mocking banter. After all, he probably couldn’t afford anything better, she thought. Not like Craig, with his company Jaguar and his inflated expense account. This man would have no such perks. ‘I didn’t mean to laugh about it—honest.’
‘Didn’t you?’ He had emptied his glass with one final long draught. Setting it aside, he came to where Kayla stood with her hand resting on the top of the radiator grid, as though in apology to the vehicle itself. ‘I suppose you measure a man’s status by the type of car he drives, huh?’
‘No.’
‘What would you prefer? A Porsche? Or a Mercedes?’ he asked roughly.
‘Well, both would be nice...’ Her voice tailed off when she noticed how forbidding he looked, and she realised that she wasn’t just imagining that hardening in his voice. ‘I wasn’t making fun of you. Not really,’ she tagged on, suddenly afraid that he might think less of her if he thought she had been. ‘I suppose I was just getting my own back.’
‘For what?’
‘For embarrassing me earlier. Making me feel awkward. When you said I was being too inquisitive about your private life.’
He laughed very softly then, his strong implacable features suddenly losing some of their austerity. His eyes, however, were disturbingly reflective as they rested on her face.
‘And I thought you were doing it just to prompt some reaction from me,’ he murmured silkily, with no apology for silencing her earlier.
‘Prompt some reaction from you?’ Kayla’s throat contracted with heightening sexual tension. ‘Why would I want to do that?’
‘Because I’m probably one of the only men you’ve met who isn’t instantly falling over himself to respond to your temptingly sexy signals.’
‘I’m not giving off any signals!’ Kayla breathed, mortified. ‘And I’m certainly not trying to get your attention.’
‘Aren’t you?’ Those shrewd eyes tugged over her flushed, indignant features, regarding, assessing and stripping her of her deepest and hottest secrets. ‘You wouldn’t have come out here looking like this...’ an all-encompassing glance took in breasts thrust tantalisingly upwards by the shaping of the cups and skimpy briefs barely skimming her abdomen ‘...if you weren’t.’
Shamefully, she wished she had bothered to retrieve her cover-up before flaunting herself in front of him like this. Because that was what she had been doing, she admitted silently. Flaunting herself.
She wanted to say something to redeem herself. Or simply to run away. Anything but stay there and face him like this.
She wished she had run when he suddenly reached up and cupped her cheek, his broad thumb playing across the softness of her pouting lips.
‘If I made love to you, Kayla,’ he said huskily, ‘it would be a fleeting moment’s pleasure. That’s all. No commitment. No strings. And I don’t think you came here to let some man with his own issues to sort out use you like that. A girl like you needs something more than anything I could offer you. Something more meaningful. Not a brief fling to try and forget the man who cheated on you with a few hours of what I can’t deny would be sensational pleasure.’
He was deadly serious, but even his words were exciting her. Or was it his thumb, tracing the curve of her plump lower lip, forcing her to close her eyes against the reckless desire to taste him? To inhale his musky animal scent mingling with the smell of grease and metal and everything that made this man exciting to her?
‘Who said I want you to make love to me?’ she murmured in pointless protest, her eyes inky beneath lashes still half-lowered against his gaze.
‘You’re inviting it with every denial you utter,’ he breathed hoarsely, his voice overlaid with desire. ‘And you’re not so naïve as not to realise that you’re making me as hard as a rock.’
‘You’re wrong!’ she argued breathlessly, and in the only way she knew of saving face she pulled away from him, almost tripping over her own feet in her flip-flops as she virtually ran back to the house.
Upstairs, away from Philomena’s shrewd eyes, she went into the shower-room and peeled off the bikini that seemed to be sticking to her.
Why on earth was she so attracted to him? she berated herself under the cool jets of the shower, trying to lather away the sensual heat from her body and that elusive scent of him that still clung to her skin where he had briefly touched her.
He had admitted himself that he was a man with issues.
Woman issues! Which was why he had shut her up, coming back from the beach today.
Well, what did she care? His business was his business. As far as she was concerned, he was simply a man who had helped her out of a difficult situation. Nothing more. It was just that she couldn’t seem to stop making a fool of herself when she was with him, let alone concentrate on anything but him when she wasn’t!
She tried to think about the past couple of months. Her ex. What had driven her here. Tried to stir up some other emotions to blot out the crazy, reckless feelings she was experiencing for Leon.
But, try though she did, feeling bitter suddenly seemed like a wasted emotion—because Craig and what he had done didn’t seem to matter so much any more.
KAYLA DIDN’T SEE Leon the next day, or the day after that, and when he did come down to the cottage again, looking stupendous in a white T-shirt and light, hip-hugging trousers, it was only to deliver logs to Philomena.
‘So you’re still roadworthy, then?’ Kayla remarked, almost coyly, when he came into the sitting room after offloading and stacking the logs beside the huge indoor oven, still embarrassingly mindful of their conversation the last time they had met.
‘Just about,’ Leonidas reassured her with a self-effacing grimace. ‘And I see that you’re just about as cheeky as ever.’
‘No, I’m not,’ Kayla asserted, thrilled nevertheless by the sensual gleam in those midnight-black eyes that seemed to promise some delightful retribution if she didn’t stop. Wildly she wondered if he had been right the other day, and she had been taunting him solely for his attention. Because despite all he had said about no attachments and no strings, she wanted that attention now—like crazy! ‘We were wondering why we hadn’t seen you,’ she said, as nonchalantly as she could.
‘We?’ He picked up on her deliberate choice of pronoun—and on the little tremor she couldn’t keep out of her voice. Obviously, from the way his mouth compressed in mild amusement. ‘Are you saying you missed me?’
‘No.’ Kayla was glad that Philomena