‘Correct.’
‘So you really have no excuse for making my life hell.’
‘I have plenty.’ Mainly that he wasn’t going to be taken in by a sharp-tongued little witch only to find out later that he’d been played for a fool.
Still... He took a deep breath watching her disappear along the narrow walking path and around the first bend. He wasn’t an unreasonable man. At least he never had been before. He frowned. He couldn’t seem to get his thoughts straight where she was concerned and that temper of hers didn’t help at all.
Scowling, he set off after her, his long strides eating up the distance to catch her up. If she were a new start-up he was interested in, he mused, he’d gather the facts first and then follow his instincts.
‘Hold up,’ he called when her bright hair came into view, his lips flat-lining when she ignored him. Oh, she was good at that. She’d pretty much pretended he hadn’t existed all through lunch.
‘I said hold up,’ he growled, grabbing her elbow.
‘And I said take a hike off a high cliff,’ she panted, her eyes the colour of an incoming storm. ‘But we don’t always get what we want, do we?’
‘Would you just listen for once? I want to clear this up and move on.’
She wrenched her arm out of his hold and moved away from him. ‘This ought to be good.’
A muscle flexed in his jaw and he let out a slow breath. If she only knew how much he wanted to wrap his fingers around her slender throat and squeeze when she looked at him like that, she’d never do it again.
‘So let me see if I’ve got this right,’ he said calmly. ‘You’re saying there’s absolutely nothing personal between you and my grandfather?’
He waited a beat, pleased with the reasonableness of his tone, when she started laughing.
‘Oh, brother!’ She tossed her hands up in the air as if he were a delinquent and right now he felt like one. This woman took his logical brain and turned it into a pretzel.
‘You are unbelievable,’ she stormed on. ‘You can’t even see what’s right in front of your face.’
He took a step towards her, gratified when she involuntarily stepped back.
Oh, yes, my little beauty, you should be afraid if I find out this is all an act.
‘I can see very clearly.’
Something in his tone alerted all Carly’s feminine instincts that she was standing on rocky ground with a tornado bearing down fast. ‘Really?’ She felt suddenly breathless. ‘And what do you see?’
Dammit. Carly knew her words were a challenge, one she hadn’t meant to issue, and his slow smile said he knew it.
‘Look, Mr James—’
‘I am looking, Miss—sorry—Dr Evans, and I see something I like very much.’ He took another step towards her, his eyes falling to the lips she’d just moistened. ‘But I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, am I? You know how desirable you are. How beautiful.’
The words were harsh, spoken more as an insult, but Carly felt her breathing quicken with pleasure at hearing them. A bird called out from somewhere high in the treetops; another answered. Instinct told her to run, while something much stronger kept her immobile.
Carly shook her head as Dare stalked towards her like a slow-moving lion whose prey was cornered.
‘No...’ A low-hanging branch brushed the back of her head and she swung around to move it. Before she could turn back Dare plastered his larger body along her back, his arms banded around her middle like a steel trap.
‘Oh, yes.’ His breath was hot against her neck and Carly’s knees went weak. ‘Your scent drives me crazy,’ he growled, his mouth opening over the skin of her neck, his teeth biting down softly. Carly moaned, the back of her head hitting his shoulder.
His hands rose from her stomach to cup her breasts and a need rose up in Carly like never before. The urge to rub her bottom against him was overwhelming. It was like a fire in her blood, burning her up from the inside out.
Don’t do it, don’t—
Dare groaned deep in his throat. ‘Do that again,’ he ordered hungrily. A thrill raced through Carly at the naked need in his voice and she was powerless to resist, gasping with pleasure when he plumped her breasts in his hands and squeezed.