When her feet had reached the floor, he let her break their kiss.
She blinked and took deep breaths that seemed to mirror his own.
“Want to go another round, petunia?” His voice sounded husky with arousal to his own ears. “I dare you.”
He watched as her brows snapped together and her eyes flashed. It was worth the price of admission to spark her ire, he thought. She’d light into him now all right, but he’d gotten her to convert her outrage into sexual energy twice now, and both times he’d been putty in her hands.
“I don’t need another round, Rafferty.” Her lashes lowered and her hand came up to stroke his arousal. She looked back up at him, her lips curving seductively. “I have all the proof I need that—how did you put it?—you can resist me.”
He sucked in a breath. In an instant, he had her pressed up against the wall again, hands over her head and wrists cuffed by one of his hands.
She wiggled against him, her seductive smile still in place, and he muttered a curse.
“What’s that, Connor? I didn’t hear you.”
He narrowed his eyes. They were playing a dangerous game: both of them refusing to back away from calling the other’s bluff. Yet, he was far from being the type to back away from a challenge. “Careful, princess. You might want to think twice about issuing a challenge like that when you’ve literally got your back to the wall,” he growled. “Do you want to deny again you enjoyed our lip-locks? Because, if you do, I’ll have to try to prove you wrong again.”
To her credit, her bravado didn’t desert her. She tossed her head, silky strands of dark hair sliding against them both as she tried to clear her face. “I suppose this counts as seduction to a caveman like you.”
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with his free hand. But then, instead of drawing his hand away, he gave in to temptation and slowly caressed the delicate line of her jaw, letting his thumb rub over the puffy softness of her lower lip.
She held herself still, her gaze locked on his, not yielding, but not lashing him with her sharp tongue either.
He moved his hand downward, stroking the side of her neck and then trailing the tip of his index finger down along the V-shaped neckline of her top and lower, over the roundness of her breast.
With his fingertip, he traced the shape of her breast, moving over its jutting peak.
Allison moaned.
“Watch me,” he breathed. He cupped her breast then—noting she was just large enough to fill the palm of his hand—and began to knead her softness.
Her eyes were fixed on his hand, the quickness of her breath the only sign she wasn’t immune to his caress.
His pulse came hard and heavy. “It wouldn’t take much for us to hit the sack together, petunia.”
She looked up at him, her eyes dilated and dark with arousal.
‘“Course,” he added wryly, “your brothers would probably pound me into pulp if we did. And I wouldn’t blame them.”
“It wouldn’t be any of their business,” she said, the breathless quality of her voice belying the toughness of her words.
He found it interesting she didn’t immediately deny any interest in sleeping with him. “Right. Ever the independent one, aren’t you?”
“It would be nice if you could remember that, too,” she said, her words sharp, but, again, her voice carrying that undertone of sexual excitement that was starting to drive him crazy.
“Have you ever wondered what it would be like, petunia,” he murmured, “if we took out our frustration with each other in the sack instead of aiming verbal barbs at each other?”
Her eyes widened a fraction but then her brows snapped together. Wrenching her hands free of his grip, she gave him a push. When he took an involuntary step back, she brushed past him, only to turn back, arms folded, when she was free and clear.
She looked furious. “Have I ever wondered? Is that an invitation to your bed?”
“If it was, would you accept?”
“Not on your life, Rafferty.”
He didn’t know what had caused her abrupt change of mood, but he silently cursed himself for inadvertently setting it off.
She marched off in the direction of the living room. “Find some other entertainment for the evening.”
The next morning, Allison was feeling marginally more relaxed.
Any remnants of tension from last night she decided to work off at the gym. Connor came along, of course, and bench-pressed some iron while she hit the treadmill.
So much for her aim of ignoring him. That plan had fallen by the wayside last night. It didn’t help that, despite her best intentions, her eyes kept trailing to him, finding him behind her with the help of the mirror in front of her.
He was in superb physical condition. His biceps and chest muscles flexed as he lifted the weight above his head, held it, and lowered it again, unaware of her scrutiny.
She thought about those arms around her the night before and flushed. Then her mind went back to his words. Had she ever wondered about hopping into bed with him?
The question had been like a dousing with ice-cold water, yanking her from the romantic haze she’d fallen into.
Of course, there’d been a time when she’d wondered what it would be like to spend the night with Connor. But his question not only made clear that he hadn’t reciprocated her feelings, it had also shown how little he’d known her.
And, naturally, she also couldn’t forget that he’d long ago proven himself an insensitive lout.
Another quick look in the mirror revealed Connor was attracting more than his fair share of surreptitious female attention.
Scowling, she ran harder.
Minutes later, she stepped off the treadmill and walked over to where he was now standing by the leg press machine. “I’m going for a swim in the pool.”
He gave her a crooked grin. A thin sheen of sweat coated his arm muscles and neck and his T-shirt was darkened in the center with perspiration. He smelled sweaty and all male. “Need to cool off, princess?”
His double meaning wasn’t lost on her. She gave him a level look. “Yes, and I thought a few laps in the pool would be a better approach than dumping water over your head.”
His laugh sounded behind her as she moved off in the direction of the women’s locker room for a quick duck under the shower nozzle before changing into her swimsuit. Since he’d gotten into this gym—not his usual one—with her guest pass, she doubted he’d be following her down to the pool.
She was wrong.
She’d completed three laps and stopped at the side of the pool when she looked up to find him standing above her. They were alone, she noticed peripherally, the middle-aged woman who had been swimming in a nearby lane just disappearing into the locker room.
She trod water and frowned up at him, cocking her head to the side. “I didn’t think I’d see you down here.” She nodded at his blue swim trunks. “Where did you get those?” she demanded.
“I always come prepared.”
Was that amusement she saw lurking in his eyes? If she wasn’t mistaken, he knew she’d been thinking—no, hoping—she’d managed to shake him.
Instead,