She would not melt. She would not succumb to his voice or his touch, or his questions, or anything. Looking over his right shoulder at the red cross of St George painted on the wall of the tunnel, she affected a tone of deep boredom.
‘Whatever. I just want the shirt back, please.’
Wordlessly, as if he were weighing up what to do next, Alejandro took a step towards her, closing the gap between them. The other players were filing past them and the tunnel echoed with their shouts and the clatter of their studs on the floor, but the noise seemed to be coming from miles away. Tamsin felt her flimsy façade slipping. The physical reality of his closeness was acting on her senses like a drug, giving her a painfully heightened awareness of his broad, sculpted chest beneath the tightly fitting shirt, the scent of damp grass and mud that clung to him, and its undertone of raw masculinity.
‘I’m sure you do,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I’m sure the last thing your father wants is to see me back in an England shirt. After all, he tried hard enough to get me out of one six years ago.’
‘Yes, well, you have to agree that the Barbarians strip is much more appropriate, Alejandro. Given that you behave like one.’
A lazy smile pulled the corners of his sexy, swollen mouth. With a nonchalant lift of his shoulders, he turned and began to walk away from her, his massive shoulders filling the narrow space. He called the shots here, and he knew it.
‘Wait!’
Fury welled inside her and she ran after him, suddenly finding that without the distraction of his closeness she could think clearly again, and fuelled by a renewed sense of urgency to reclaim the shirt. Slipping past him, she placed herself defiantly in the doorway of the visitors’ changing room, blocking his way.
‘The shirt, Alejandro.’
She saw the dangerous gleam in the depths of his tiger’s eyes, and for a split second wondered if he was going to push her out of the way. Given the relative size of them, he’d hardly have to try, but something in him seemed to prevent him. If she didn’t know any better she’d think it was some sense of inherent chivalry, but that would be ridiculous, because she knew better than anyone that there wasn’t an atom of decency in the whole of Alejandro D’Arienzo’s magnificent body.
He stood back, raising both his hands as if in surrender, but his face bore a look of subdued triumph.
‘OK—go on, then. Take it.’
She cast a furtive look around. The tunnel was emptier now, but there were still officials, a few cameramen and journalists hovering outside the press room. ‘Me? Take it off you? Don’t be ridiculous. I can’t.
Alejandro gave a small shrug and dropped his hands. ‘I think we both know that you can, because you’ve done it before. But if you don’t want to …’ He came towards her and she found herself automatically stepping aside. ‘Obviously it’s not that important.’
‘It is.’
She spoke through gritted teeth, trying to keep back the scream of frustration and fury that was gathering in her chest. Alejandro’s hand was on the door and she reached out and grabbed his arm.
It was as if she’d touched a bolt of lightning. White-hot tongues of electricity sizzled up her arm and exploded inside her, simply from the contact of his body beneath the shirt. How come in six years this had never happened with anyone else, even when she’d wanted it to?
He stopped, then slowly turned round so he was standing with his back against the door. ‘OK, then. If it matters so much, you’d better take it.’
He was challenging her, she realised, and Tamsin Calthorpe was a girl who could never resist a challenge. Her eyes were pinned to his as she moved towards him, her heart pounding painfully in her chest. Just do it, she thought wildly. You’re a big girl now, not that gauche and gullible teenager. Show him that he can’t intimidate you …
She made a short exhalation of exasperation and disgust. Quickly, so he couldn’t see how much her hands were shaking, she took hold of the hem of the shirt and tugged it roughly upwards, while he stood unhelpfully motionless, his gaze fixed mockingly on her face.
‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’ she hissed.
‘Being undressed so tenderly by a beautiful woman?’ he drawled with heavy irony. ‘Who wouldn’t?’
Viciously she yanked his arms up, standing on her tiptoes to pull the shirt over them, her breath coming in uneven gasps with the effort of manhandling his immensely powerful body, and of hiding the screaming, treacherous desire that it aroused in her. But as she reached up he made a sudden, sharp move backwards so that the door swung open and she fell against his chest with a cry of anguish and surprise.
A raucous cheer and a volley of wolf-whistles rang around the Barbarians’ dressing room. Tamsin froze in horror, her hands still entangled in the rugby shirt which was now midway over Alejandro’s chest, realising exactly how it must look.
Exactly how Alejandro had intended it to look.
‘Don’t tell me you’re not enjoying it too,’ he murmured. The amusement in his voice was unmistakable.
As she disengaged herself and stepped back, Tamsin felt an eerie calm descend on her. It was as if, in those few seconds, she was selecting an emotion from a range displayed before her: the murderous rage was tempting, or the cathartic, hysterical indignation … But, no. It might be difficult to carry off, but she was going to go for something a little more sophisticated.
She felt her mouth curve into a languid, slightly patronising smile as she took the bottom of the shirt gingerly between her finger and thumb, and pulled it disdainfully down, covering up the sinuous convex sweep of Alejandro’s stomach.
‘Cover yourself up, D’Arienzo,’ she said scathingly. ‘When I said “nice strip” I was referring to the shirt.’
The changing room erupted in whoops and whistles of appreciation as Tamsin turned on her heel and, casting a last, pitying glance at Alejandro, swept out. Her rush of triumph and elation lasted just long enough for the door to slam behind her, and then she collapsed, shaking, against the wall.
Suddenly the shirt seemed like the least of her problems.
Ignoring the boisterous cheers of his team-mates, Alejandro pulled off the shirt and tossed it contemptuously down on the bench before grabbing a towel and heading grimly towards the bathroom beyond the changing area. He felt none of the physical exhaustion that usually descended on him in the immediate aftermath of a game. Thanks to that close encounter with the High Priestess of Seduction and Betrayal, his mind was racing, his body still pulsing with adrenalin.
Adrenalin and other more inconvenient hormones.
The bathroom was a spartan white-tiled room with six huge claw-footed baths arranged facing each other in two rows, each filled with iced water. Research showed that an ice bath immediately after a game minimised the impact of injury, and shocked the body into a quicker recovery, but this didn’t make the practice any more popular with players. In the nearest tub the blond Australian giant, Dean Randall, sat still in full kit, grim-faced and shivering with cold. He glanced up as Alejandro came in.
‘Welcome to the Twickenham spa, mate,’ he joked weakly through chattering teeth. ‘I’d have kept that shirt on if I were you. It doesn’t make much difference, but, by God, anything’s better than nothing.’
Alejandro didn’t flinch as he stepped into the bath.
‘I