‘What?’ she said, embarrassment making her voice accusing. Well, it was extremely embarrassing to be caught ogling a man’s body even if the scrutiny was totally objective.
‘I said would you close the…?’ Emitting an irritated sound, he clicked his tongue and leaned in towards her.
Neve instinctively shrank back, a strangled cry escaping her lips before she realised that he was just closing the door.
His hand still resting on the wall beside the doorjamb, he swept a concerned downward glance at her upturned features.
Neve looked at her feet and heard him say, ‘What’s wrong?’
She shook her head, still avoiding the dark gleam of his eyes through the slits of the mask. She felt deeply embarrassed by her stupid instinctive reaction.
Her instincts were still embarrassing her.
It was bizarre. She had to make a conscious effort to put one foot in front of the other; she was unable to stop shaking, half dead with cold and, despite all that, or hopefully because of it, she was conscious of the weirdest tug.
She had this insane impulse, not to draw back, but to lean into him. She was drawn to his sheer physical presence, his strength and the warmth of the big body. The longer he stayed curved over her, projecting this testosterone force field, the more difficult it was to resist the bizarre compulsion.
‘What did you think I was going to do?’
Neve shook her head mutely. He’d put his own interpretation on her silence, but what could she say? I thought you were going to kiss me.
What would it have felt like?
Appalled by the dreamy question that surfaced in her head, she gave a fractured sigh of relief when he straightened up.
Her hands, still crossed in a protective gesture over her heaving chest, fell limply to her sides. She watched through the screen of her lashes as he walked across the room.
There was something totally riveting about the way he moved.
Neve pushed the thought away and lowered her gaze to the chequered floor tiles. ‘You…you startled me.’
‘Relax, you are quite safe.’
The mockery in his deep voice made her squirm. ‘Nice to know.’
‘I admit you might scrub up well,’ he said, sounding insultingly doubtful, ‘but right now, cara, you are not, believe me, going to drive any man wild with lust.’ No man in his right mind, certainly, but Severo was beginning to doubt his own mental health.
The question was not why on earth did he want to kiss the tip of her red nose, it was why on earth was he here? He valued logic; he prided himself on his judgement—what sort of judgement had made him risk life and limb in a blizzard?
Did he really think she needed him to point out her deficiencies? ‘I suppose you like your women to be decorative and dumb.’ It was not a question, just a fact of life.
‘I can see you find my sex life fascinating, but can we leave this discussion for later?’
Struggling to maintain the illusion of dignity, she followed him through the door muttering under her breath. ‘It’s always nice to have something to look forward to.’
One thing that really got under his skin was the sort of woman who always had to have the last word.
Chapter Four
THE softly lit living area was open-plan, a large lofty space dominated by a wood burner at one end and a high-spec ultramodern kitchen at the other.
Severo took in his surroundings in one sweeping glance, dismissing as he did so the ‘lights being on an automatic timer to discourage burglars’ explanation.
This place was definitely lived in, he decided, glancing at today’s date on the newspaper spread out on a sofa.
Neve hung back in the doorway getting the lived-in vibe too. ‘W…we can’t just walk into someone else’s home, and touch their things,’ she added pointedly as he lifted the lid of a laptop.
Severo closed the lid with a snap; her sudden respect for others’ property struck him as ironic. ‘What do you suggest we do—press our noses to the glass while we freeze?’ He flicked a sideways glance her way and thought, In your case freeze some more. Even the soft mood lighting did not disguise the fact she looked one step away from collapse.
‘No, but—’ She stopped and shook her head, finishing lamely, ‘It doesn’t feel right.’
The head shake had been a mistake. The distant buzz got a lot louder as the angles of the room began to shift and tilt in a way that made her feel queasy. She had zero experience of fainting, but she did wonder whether this might be the build-up.
He already obviously thought she was clueless, which was pretty annoying considering she had been looking after herself since she was fourteen, but Neve had no intention of reinforcing the ‘helpless little woman’ image by falling at his feet.
Even as she advised herself sternly to get a grip she swayed gently.
‘It feels a lot righter than dying of exposure.’
He turned and Neve reached out to grab the back of a chair to steady herself; her fingers, still numb and uncooperative, flexed feebly and slid uselessly off the wooden bar.
‘Sit.’ His hands were on her shoulders.
She blinked, wondering how he had materialised at her side without her noticing as she responded to the pressure. For a big man he moved quickly and silently.
‘Deep breaths,’ he said. Pushing his fingers under the wet hair on her nape, he forced her head forward and between her knees.
His soothing voice and calm manner helped her recover as much as the air she dragged into her lungs. It only took a couple of moments for the buzzing to retreat and her head to clear.
Bracing herself for his reaction to her uncharacteristic girly display of weakness, Neve pushed her wet hair back from her face with both hands and straightened up. She needn’t have worried—his attention was directed not at her, but on the galleried landing above.
‘Do you hear someone?’ she asked hopefully.
He shook his head and scanned her pale face. ‘Feeling better?’
‘I’m fine.’
Her response drew an irritated frown.
Neve’s glance drifted hopefully towards the phone sitting on the table behind him. ‘The phone?’
Severo followed the direction of her gaze and picked it up. After a moment he shook his head. ‘Dead.’ Not actually a major surprise, but her face fell as if she were a child whose ice cream had been snatched away.
This redhead should never play poker. The women in Severo’s life rarely said what they meant, they generally chose less direct methods to get what they wanted, so to be around someone who was not only straight talking to the point of rudeness, but broadcast her every minute change of mood, had a certain novelty value.
No doubt the novelty would wear thin, the same way after repeated exposure he would not find blue eyes so startling.
‘Somebody appears to have left in a hurry,’ he observed, walking across to the table laid with an untouched meal. He pulled off a glove and stabbed some of the food with a finger. ‘Cold,’ he said, pulling off the other glove and flexing his long fingers to revive the sluggish circulation.
Neve watched as he walked to the bottom of the big curving staircase where he called out, his deep voice echoing around the vaulted room.
There was a silence.
‘At least the fire is still lit,’