‘I don’t.’ The last thing she needed was her inhibitions loosening.
‘Well, cheers to me.’
She looked at him, her brow furrowed.
‘It’s my birthday.’
‘Seriously?’
He arched a satirical brow. The emotions that lay just below the smile in his eyes sent a deep shiver rippling through her body, like the silver light on the moonlit sea.
‘I’d forgotten.’
‘How can you forget your birthday?’ In her family birthdays were a big deal. Last year was the first one that she and Lara had not celebrated together.
‘A lot of things have been happening.’
‘Well, happy birthday.’ It sounded inane.
He responded with a tilt of his head. ‘It is certainly one I won’t forget.’
‘What did you do on your last birthday?’
‘Actually I do remember that one. I spent it in bed.’
‘YOU WERE ILL?’
There was a moment’s startled silence that was broken by his laughter. It was pitched low but an unexpected lull in the conversation on the tables around them had made the sound travel.
‘Then why were you—?’ she began, then stopped, her eyes flying wide as understanding dawned. The hot mortified colour flew to her cheeks and with it came a breath-catching knife thrust of concentrated corrosive jealousy.
The blush fascinated him... Did it go all over? His eyes dropped, the laughter fading from his face replaced by something much harder as his glance fell and lingered on the upper slopes of her breasts, where they strained against the silky green fabric.
Lily reacted to his glance as if it were a caress. She had zero control over the reaction of her disastrously receptive body to the brush of his eyes and she lifted her hand far too late to hide it from him.
‘Oh.’
The sound that left his throat this time was more growl than laugh. It made the fine downy hairs on her body lift from her sensitised skin. When his eyes lifted and levelled on hers, they were several shades darker.
‘Relax. I’ve never expected a woman to sleep with me for the price of a dinner.’ He lifted his glass with a clink of ice. ‘That’s not to say an evening hasn’t occasionally concluded that way,’ he drawled provocatively.
‘I can imagine,’ she snapped back and lifted her chin, unwittingly drawing his attention to the long, lovely line of her graceful neck. ‘So long as you know that this one isn’t.’ In her head the delivery had been amused but to her frustration when it actually left her lips the comment was throaty...a little breathless.
His thoughts swung back to earlier when he had arrived at the hotel just as she’d emerged. That traffic-stopping dress that hugged the curves of her body and the long, sinuous line of her endless legs.
Unable to control the consequences of the testosterone rush her emergence had produced, he had been forced to remain in his seat and let her climb in with the help of the porter.
For a man who prided himself on his self-control the drive to the harbour restaurant had been new territory. Rather than subside, his painful arousal had become excruciating when she’d slid in beside him. She’d smelled delicious. And he’d itched to touch the silk of her dress and everything beneath...
It had taken the rest of the journey to get his libido in check—not that the hunger had gone away. His lowered heavy lids did not completely hide the gleam in his eyes as he studied her, trying to work out what it was about her. Beyond the blindingly obvious—this was way more than her looking like an advert for sin—what was it that made him feel so out of control?
Just when he needed it, his ability to see beyond his own emotional reaction to a situation and apply clear-headed logic deserted him. He inhaled and dragged his eyes clear of the sensuous soft trembling outline of her lips and growled a soft warning.
‘Be careful, Lily, some men might take that as a challenge.’
Lily, who was already regretting the comment that had invited his response, shook her head and kept her voice carefully flat as she responded, ‘It wasn’t.’
Hands clenched, she dabbed her tongue to the beads of sweat along her upper lip. She could control her voice, but her traitorous thoughts were another matter entirely.
And this definitely wasn’t what she wanted, she reminded herself as she studied the tablecloth. Some complications she had no control over; this was one she did. All it required was a little willpower, a little self-control.
Emmy was their link; their roles as her parents needed to be strictly defined.
The only problem was that when he looked at her that way her self-control went on holiday.
The first challenge was to hide the chain reaction that had begun as a tremor in the pit of her belly. It was now spreading until her skin was prickling with sensation and she was shaking inside and out. It was terrifying to feel this much and he wasn’t even touching her.
‘I thought it might be my birthday present.’ His voice was light, but the accompanying gleam in his eyes was anything but.
She shook out her napkin and dabbed her lips. ‘I wonder where the ladies’ room is?’ she said, following up her comment with an ostentatious glance over each shoulder.
She had half risen to her feet when her glance connected with his. Without warning her knees folded and she sat down with a gentle thud. The explicit gleam of hunger in his eyes had a paralysing effect.
Without breaking eye contact he clicked his long fingers.
‘Bill, please.’
Lily watched through her lashes as he placed a wad of notes on the plate, not even looking at the denominations, though from the waiter’s expression there were way too many.
‘We’re going?’
He arched a dark brow. ‘You want to stay?’
Lily looked at him and wished she didn’t know what she wanted. ‘I thought you were hungry.’
‘I am.’
Their glances connected, startled green on smouldering blue, and though her insides dissolved she ignored the sensation and didn’t ask him to explain the comment. She already knew and to admit it would have made the return journey more awkward. It was easier to ignore the elephant in the room.
As it was they completed the trip in total silence and to hear him finally break it made her start violently.
‘We’re here.’
Ben pulled the car to a halt; without the engine noise everything seemed very quiet. She could hear her own heartbeat and the distant sound of the ocean.
Disorientated, she looked around. ‘But—’ She stopped, realising that he hadn’t driven through the main gates. He’d turned the vehicle down a dirt track that came to a dead end in the trees. Through the leafy canopy she could make out the outline of her bungalow.
‘Right, thanks.’
‘I wanted to ask something...’
Her heart started to thud; in the darkness his blue eyes were hypnotically dark. A wave of longing rolled over her, blanking all logical thought. ‘What?’
‘I wondered if you