‘What?’
‘Jump.’
That was it, she’d had enough. She wasn’t the remotest bit interested in playing games. What was he—five?
But when she attempted to get down off the chair, a long arm snapped around her waist and she was launched into mid-air. The next thing she knew, she was slammed into what felt like a wall of heat, a sharp gasp hauled through her parted lips. She jerked her chin up and stared into his eyes, the tips of their noses almost touching. What. The. Hell?
‘You see …’ he said in a mesmerizing rumble ‘… it’s all about balance …’
Surreally, his intense gaze examined her face in a way that suggested he’d never looked at her before. But what was more disconcerting was how it felt as if there weren’t anywhere they weren’t touching. The sensation of her breasts crushed against his chest made it difficult to breathe, the contact sending an erotic jolt through her abdomen. How could she be attracted to him when she disliked him so much?
When she was lowered—unbearably slowly—along the length of his large body, Jo had no choice but to grasp wide shoulders until her feet hit the cushions. She swayed as she let go. For a moment she even felt light-headed.
‘I knew what I was doing.’ Stepping down, he lifted her onto the floor as if she weighed nothing.
Taking an immediate step back, Jo dropped her arms to her sides. Her gaze lowered to his chest. She should be angry, ticked off beyond belief he had the gall to touch her and—worse still—have an effect on her body. She liked her world right-side-up, thank you very much, and if he knew what he had done to her …
Folding her arms over heavy breasts, she lifted her chin again. ‘The giant footprints you’ve left on my sofa make us even for the half-dozen glasses.’
‘If you’ve got nothing better to do with your time than talk about me to my family, try taking up a hobby.’
A small cough of disbelief left her lips. ‘I have plenty of things to fill my time.’
‘Dating obviously isn’t one of them,’ he said dryly.
‘Meaning what, exactly?’
‘Meaning I may have forgotten why it is you’ve stayed single for so long, but after an hour it’s starting to come back to me.’ He folded his arms in a mirror of her stance. ‘Ever consider being nice from time to time might improve the odds of getting laid?’
‘Since when has my sex life been remotely in the region of any of your business?’
‘If I had to guess, I’d say around about the same time my relationship with my family became yours.’
Reaching for the kind of strength that had gotten her through worse things than an argument in the past, Jo smiled sweetly. ‘Try not to let the door hit your ass on the way out.’
‘That’s the best you’ve got?’ he asked with a lift of his brows. ‘You’re obviously out of practice.’ He nodded firmly. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll soon get you combat-ready again.’
Jo sighed heavily and headed for the door. She didn’t look at him as he crossed the room. But for some completely unknown reason, just before he left, she heard herself ask, ‘Don’t you ever get tired of this?’
Where had that come from?
Daniel stopped, turned his head and studied her with an intense gaze. ‘Quitting on me, babe?’
She frowned when the softly spoken question did something weird to her chest. ‘Don’t call me babe.’
When he didn’t move, the air seemed to thicken in the space between them. Stupid hormones —even if she was in the market for a relationship he was the last man—
‘You want to negotiate a truce?’
She didn’t know what had possessed her to ask the question in the first place and now he was asking if she wanted them to be friends? She stifled a burst of laughter. ‘Did I give the impression I was waving a white flag? I’m talking about you, not me. You look tired, Daniel.’ She pouted. ‘Is the energy required pretending to be a nice guy to everyone else finally wearing you down?’
His eyes darkened. ‘Questioning my stamina, babe?’
The ‘babe’ thing was really starting to get to her.
Taking a step closer, he leaned his face close enough for her to feel the warmth of his breath on her cheeks.
‘Bad idea,’ he warned.
Ignoring the flutter of her pulse, Jo stiffened her spine. Since childhood she’d had a code she lived by; one she still found hard to break, even for the tiny handful of people she allowed to occupy an equally tiny corner of her heart. Show any sign of weakness and it was the beginning of the end. The masks she wore were the reason she had survived a time in her life when she was invisible. At the beginning of her career they gave the impression professional criticism never stung. So while her heart thudded erratically, she donned a mask of Zen-like calm. ‘Am I supposed to be intimidated by that?’
He smiled dangerously in reply. ‘Keep challenging me and this is going to get real interesting, real quick.’
‘Seriously, you’re hilarious. I never knew that about you.’ Raising a hand, she patted him in the centre of his broad chest. ‘Now be a good boy and treat yourself to an early night. Can’t have those good looks fading, now, can we?’ She flattened her palm and pushed him back to make enough room to open the door. ‘What would we use to fool members of the opposite sex into thinking we’re a catch if we had to rely on our personality?’
‘You tell me.’
Moving her hand from his chest, she wrapped her fingers around a muscled upper arm and encouraged him to step through the door with another push. When he was standing in the hall and looking at her with a hint of a smile on his face, she leaned her shoulder against the door frame and angled her chin. Her eyes narrowed. It felt as if he knew something she didn’t.
She hated when he did that.
‘Admit it: you missed this.’
Lifting her gaze upwards, she studied the air and took a deep breath. ‘Nope, can’t say I did.’
‘Without me around there’s no one to set you straight when you need it.’
‘You say that as if you know me well enough to know what I need.’ She shook her head. ‘You don’t know me, Daniel. You’re afraid to get to know me.’
‘Really,’ he said dryly.
‘Yes, really, because if you did you might have to admit you were wrong about me and we both know you don’t like to admit you’re wrong about anything.’ She glanced up and down the hall as if searching for eavesdroppers before lowering her voice. ‘Worse still, you might discover you like me. And we can’t have that, can we?’
Rocking forward, he lowered his voice to the same level. ‘I don’t think there’s any danger of that.’
Jo searched his too-blue eyes, suddenly questioning if he even remembered how the war between them began. Looking back, she realized she didn’t; what was it that made him so much more difficult to get along with than every other member of his family? Everyone got to a point where they started to try and make sense of their life. She was at peace with a lot of the things she couldn’t change. But since Daniel was the only person she’d ever been immature around in her entire life, she couldn’t help but wonder why. Apparently he wasn’t the only one in need of a good night’s rest.
She rolled her eyes at the momentary weakness. ‘Whatever you tell yourself to help you sleep at night.’
‘I