He grinned down at her. ‘Where’s your sense of fun, mio piccolo?’
She flicked him a disparaging look. ‘You’re utterly shameless.’
‘I know.’ He said it as if it were a badge of honour. ‘It’s my trademark. My brand. Cool, huh?’
She stopped walking to look at him. ‘Wouldn’t you rather be known for something other than a salacious scandal magnet?’
‘Wouldn’t you rather be known as something other than a prudish little goody-two-shoes who doesn’t know the first thing about having fun?’ he countered.
The mockery in his gaze stung her pride more than she expected it to. More than she wanted it to. Her entire body stiffened, like a porcupine extending its needles in self-protection. ‘I’m not a prude.’
‘Yes, you are. And a coward. You got burned once so you’ve locked yourself away up in your princess tower where no one can reach you.’ His mouth lifted in a cynical, teasing curve. ‘You’re scared. That’s why you hide behind that priggish exterior because passion frightens you. Life frightens you. You frighten you.’
Lottie hated that he knew so much about her—the real her—on so little an acquaintance. ‘Oh, and I suppose you think you’re the one I should let my hair down for, do you?’ She poked a finger to his sternum. ‘Well, let me tell you something, Lucca Chatsfield.’ Poke. ‘You’re the last man I would ever get messed up with.’ Poke. ‘Because that’s what you do.’ Poke. ‘You mess people up.’ Poke. ‘You play with them and then you dump them. I don’t think that’s anything to be crowing about. You should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself.’
He brushed her hand away as if it were an annoying mosquito. ‘I’m not. So get over it.’
Lottie nailed her feet to the pavement. ‘You think I’m scared, but what about you? When are you going to grow up? You’re just a shallow Peter Pan playboy who hasn’t even got the maturity to live off his own means instead of sponging off his family’s fortune like some pathetic blood-sucking parasite.’
The silence was so intense it grew teeth.
‘Are you done?’ His gaze was steely, his jaw like concrete, all except for a nerve that ticked in and out on his left cheek like the flickering of a faulty switch.
Lottie refused to back down. There was something incredibly invigorating about finally getting under his skin. He was always so charming and laid-back. Laughing at life. Mocking it and everyone as if he didn’t care what they thought of him. But underneath that party-boy facade was a proud and angry man.
A bitterly angry man.
‘No, I’m not done,’ she said. ‘It’s time someone told you the truth instead of dancing around you and feeding your ego the way that bunch of social-climbing sycophants you surround yourself with do. Who are your real friends? Who knows you? The real you? Who cares about you more than your money? Who cares about you more than anything else in the world? No one, that’s who. You’re nothing without your family’s money and you damn well know it. That’s why you want it so badly.’
He drew in a breath that widened his nostrils like a thoroughbred stallion facing a challenging opponent. He took her arm in a grip that was iron-strong and marched her along the street through the knot of people who had stopped to stare at them. ‘Keep moving and keep your mouth shut,’ he said through tight lips.
She pulled at his grip. ‘Stop it. You’re hurting me.’
He loosened his hold but not enough for her to tug free. ‘I said, Shut the freaking hell up. You’re causing a scene.’
‘You’re not the boss of me.’ Lottie knew she sounded about three years old but she was beyond caring. She even had the toddler pout down pat and the leaden dragging feet.
His eyes cut to hers in a derisive glance. ‘Now look who’s acting immature.’
‘Jerk.’ She poked her tongue out at him. It was probably a bit over the top but it felt so good to spar with him. Her body was zinging with exhilaration. It was like being injected with a heady drug. She didn’t want it to stop. She had never told anyone off in her life. Maybe she should do it more often. It felt good to stand up for herself for a change.
His eyes were like black flint. ‘Don’t get me started on the insults because I bet I know a hell of lot more colourful ones than you.’
He pulled her through the hotel foyer, rudely ignoring the obsequious staff member who spoke to him on the way past. He stabbed at the lift button, and as if they dared not disobey him, the doors instantly sprang open. He pulled her in with him and the doors hadn’t even closed again before he pressed her roughly back against the nearest wall as his mouth came crashing down on hers.
It was nothing like his first kiss. It was not a kiss of seduction but of punishment. It wasn’t meant to induce pleasure but pain. It was as if the fury that was buried deep inside him had finally found a leaky outlet. It was gushing forth like a blown pipe, pouring into her with blistering heat.
Somehow her arms ended up around his neck, her body pressed so tightly against his she felt the swollen length of his erection pounding with want against her belly. She tasted blood, somehow knew it was her own, but instead of trying to escape she kissed him back, using her teeth and her tongue and her lips as if this was the last kiss she would ever have.
The passion that rumbled through her was a scary, out of control entity. It was a wild primitive side of herself she was terrified of letting loose but there was nothing she could do to restrain it. Desire streaked along her veins like a river of fire, making her flesh feel vigorously alive.
His hot breath and his sexy coffee-scented saliva mingled with hers as his mouth devoured hers with primal purpose. The faintly musky and erotic scent of arousal haunted the air. Goose bumps of pleasure prickled out over her skin as his tongue tangled with hers, driving deeper into her mouth, making her whimper breathlessly in pleasure.
One of his hard thighs came between hers, rubbing against her intimately, ruthlessly letting her know what he could do to her with just a single stroke of hard male muscle against her throbbing need. She gasped as she felt the tingling of her inner core, the exquisite tightening of her flesh, the greedy desperate little ache of her tissues that were already wet and weeping with want.
But then he suddenly pulled back from her with a muttered imprecation, putting the width of the lift between them. He swiped the back of his hand across his mouth and then frowned when he saw a small smear of blood on his tanned skin.
His eyes met hers, his expression dark and tight with self-disgust. ‘I’m sorry.’ He grimaced as if it physically pained him to say the words. ‘That was unforgivable.’
Lottie tentatively passed the tip of her tongue over the tiny split in her lower lip. She saw him follow the movement with his gaze, saw the convulsive rise and fall of his throat that signalled his regret even more powerfully than his gruff apology.
But she wasn’t quite ready to forgive him.
Not for kissing her so soundly. But for demonstrating how pathetically weak her resolve was against his practised seduction techniques.
Resolve? Ha! What resolve? Armour smar-mour. Going into battle with him was like going into a fencing match with a soggy noodle instead of a sword.
Pathetic.
She was pathetic.
The lift doors opening gave her the perfect exit cue.
Lottie turned and walked out with her back stiff and her shoulders neatly aligned, her head at an angle even her overly strict childhood deportment tutor would have been proud of.
It