Miranda pulled out of his hold with an almighty wrench that made her stumble backwards. How dared he mock her? How dared he make fun of her? How dared he question her love and commitment for Mark and his for her? ‘You have no right to question my relationship with Mark. No right at all. I loved him. I loved him and I still love him. Nothing you can say or do will ever change that.’
His mouth slanted in a cynical half-smile. ‘I could change that. I know I could. All it would take is one little kiss.’
Miranda coughed out a laugh but even to her ears it sounded unconvincing. ‘Like that’s ever going to happen.’
He was suddenly close. Way too close. His broad fingertip was suddenly on the underside of her chin without her knowing how it got there. All she registered was the warm, branding feeling of it resting there, holding her captive with the mesmerising force of his bottomless dark gaze.
‘Is that a dare, Sleeping Beauty?’ he said in a silky tone.
Miranda felt his words slither down her spine like an unfurling satin ribbon running away from its spool. Her knees threatened to give way. Her belly quivered with a host of needs she couldn’t even name. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from his coal-black gaze. It was drawing her in like a magnet does a tiny iron filing.
She became aware of her breasts inside the lacy cups of her bra. They prickled and swelled as if stimulated to attention by the deep, burry sound of his voice. The below-the-ocean-floor, rumbly bass of his voice—the voice that did strange things to her feminine body.
Her inner core clenched in a contraction of raw, primal need. Her blood ticked, raced, through the network of her veins at breakneck frenzied speed. Every pore of her body ached for his touch, for the sensuous glide of his fingers, for the hot sweep of his tongue, for the stabbing thrust of his body.
But finally a vestige of pride came to her rescue.
Miranda dipped out from under his fingertip and rubbed at her chin as she sent him a warning glare. ‘Don’t play games with me, Leandro.’
A sardonic gleam shone in his dark eyes. ‘You think I was joking?’
She didn’t know what to think. Not when he looked at her like that—with smouldering black-as-pitch eyes that seemed to see right through her defences. That sensually contoured mouth shouldn’t tempt her. She shouldn’t be wondering what it would feel like against her own. She shouldn’t be looking at his mouth as if she had no control over her gaze.
He was her brothers’ friend. He was practically one of the family. He had seen her with pimples and braces. He had seen her lying on the sofa with a hot-water bottle pressed to her cramping belly. He could have any girl he wanted. Why would he want to kiss her unless it was to score points? He thought her loyalty to Mark was ridiculous. How better to prove it by having her go weak-kneed when he kissed her?
Not. Going. To. Happen.
She bent her head and made to go past him. ‘I’m going to do something about dinner.’
He caught her left arm on the way past, his fingers forming a loose bracelet around her wrist. His gaze drew hers to his with an unspoken command. She couldn’t have looked away if she tried. Her breath caught as his thumb found her pulse. The warmth of his fingers made her spine fizz and her knees tremble. ‘There’s no food in the house,’ he said. ‘I haven’t had time to shop. Let’s go out.’
Miranda chewed the inside of her lip. ‘I’m not sure that’s such a good idea...’
His thumb stroked the underside of her wrist in slow motion. ‘Just dinner,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t try any moves on you. Your brothers would skin me alive if I did.’
The thought of him making a move on her made the hot spill in her belly spread through her pelvis and down between her thighs like warmed treacle. It was hard enough controlling her reaction to him as he stroked her wrist in that tantalising manner. Her senses went into a tailspin with every mesmerising movement of his fingers against her skin. What would it do to her to feel his mouth on hers? To feel his molten touch on her breasts and her other aching intimate places?
But then, she thought: what had her brothers to do with anything? If she wanted to get involved with Leandro—if things had been different, that was—then that would be up to her, not to Julius and Jake to give the go ahead. ‘I’m hardly your type in any case,’ Miranda said, carefully extricating her wrist from his fingers.
His expression was now inscrutable. ‘Does that bother you?’
Did it?
Of course it did. Men like Leandro didn’t notice girls like her. She was the type of girl who was invisible to most men. She was too girl-next-door. Shy and reserved, not vivacious and outgoing. Pretty but not stunning. Petite, not voluptuous. If it hadn’t been for his friendship with her brothers he probably wouldn’t have given her the time of day. She wasn’t just a wallflower. She was wallpaper. Bland, boring, beige wallpaper.