He walked up to her. “No other men for you either.”
“Fine. No problem.”
“Six months of celibacy?” he questioned, eyebrows raised again. “No problem?”
“Of course.” She shrugged. “You really think you’re going to manage that?”
“I can if you can.” His voice dropped.
She licked her lips. “Of course I can.” She’d done twice as long already.
“Okay so we’re agreed there’s no other women for me or you. Or men for that matter.” He inwardly chuckled at the startled expression in her eyes. “But I do think we should practice.”
“Practice w-what?”
He stepped closer—invading her space but keeping that smile on his face.
She backed up a pace but further retreat was blocked by the doorjamb. “I’m not kissing you.”
“Who said anything about kissing?” he asked, oh-so-innocent.
He was baiting her. She was overly aware of his reputation as a playboy slayer and he knew it. He’d had more women than she’d had cartons of ice-cream. But she wasn’t going to let him win.
“I was thinking about our story,” he said with a benign shrug. “How we met. How long we’ve been keeping this under wraps. We need to practice the answers we’re going to give people when they ask. Rocco almost caught us out already. If he’d seen me move you into another room it wouldn’t add believability to our story.”
He honestly thought they could make this believable? Min curled her toes in amusement as she thought of some ‘story’ he could peddle. “You can tell them I’m planning on being a virgin on my wedding night.”
A shocked look entered his eyes and his jaw slackened. “Are you?”
She inwardly chuckled at his floored expression, but she shrugged and answered more smoothly than she’d ever done in her life. “That’s not something you’re ever going to know.”
He studied her. Clearly thinking. Then his wicked grin returned. “You’re my angel.”
She rolled her eyes, her innards set to simmering again. “So you’re going to paint me as some ‘light of purity’ whose mere presence cleanses you from your past sins?”
Damn, who’d known she could talk so sharp, so fluent? She grinned, relishing her inner evilness.
His eyes gleamed. “Would you rather be more of a tart?”
“No,” she said, totally tartly. “I don’t like that d-d-dichotomy at all. Virgin or whore? Girl, mother, crone? I d-don’t like the stereotypes you’ve got going on.”
“You can be all of them rolled into one,” he said soothingly. “The lovely girl who turns dirty after dark. The one with the magic pussy that compares to no other...”
She gaped at him. “You are such a j-j-jerk.”
And damn him, he’d taken her stereotype argument and gone one further with it. He could so go one step further than her in the shock talk.
“And you’re so determined to think the worst of me,” he continued as if she hadn’t interrupted. “I think you’re one of the most judgmental people I’ve ever met. Is it the sex tape? Is that what you’re holding against me?”
She drew breath. Oh it was so much more than that. The guy was sex personified and she had no real idea how to combat him—or, more to the point, her attraction to him.
“I’ve never met anyone else who’s been in a sex tape,” she commented blandly, determined not to shy from discussing it. Determined not to blush.
“Are you a virgin?”
He was really hung up on that idea now, wasn’t he? “Not every one who’s had sex has had their performance broadcast around the world,” she said, failing not to sound indignant.
His demeanor relaxed and he laughed. “If you’re not a virgin, you ought to know different people like to do different things. I don’t know that your discomfort is because you’re truly disapproving, or whether it’s because you’re secretly turned on by the it.” He edged closer. “Don’t you like the idea of being the only woman able to tame the wild Logan Hughes?”
“Could you be more of an arrogant jerk?” she asked. “Maybe you’re the one who tamed me.”
“Because you’re such a wanton hussy?” He grinned wolfishly.
“Except I won’t be,” she ignored his comment. “You won’t be tamed. A couple weeks and you’ll be off the rails again.”
“No.” He shook his head with a pious expression. “I’ll be crying into my beer, heartbroken about being dumped by the one and only woman I could ever love and resigning myself to a life of celibacy.”
“As if. You’ll be celebrating your single status with a series of meaningless sexual escapades with a wide variety of women. Multiple women.”
He laughed. “This could be an interesting six months, Min.”
“It’s not going to be six months. It’s not even going to be six days.” She’d never survive six months. Not without killing him. And not without kissing him first.
Just once. Just to know.
“And let’s be honest,” she muttered. “I don’t need to stay here. We can still be engaged but I’d prefer to live at my place. It has soul.”
“It has damp rot.”
He’d noticed that? Damn. “It has personality.”
“It might be growing things, but not personality.” He shook his head. “You’re staying here. I can protect you here.”
She shook her head. “I don’t need protection.”
“No? Then what was all the hyperventilating in the elevator? You want to deal with the jackals alone? You’re happy to cope with photographers and people prying into your trash can? People asking you questions, shoving cameras and microphones in your face at every opportunity?”
She blanched. But it wouldn’t happen again, right? “They won’t do that,” she insisted. “I’m not interesting enough. Even you’re not interesting enough. That was just for tonight—”
“I’m a Hughes from the ski-slope empire, that means money, babe. People will be all over you and I’m not leaving you to face them alone.”
She gritted her teeth, annoyed because he was right, and because he was being too damn nice. “How heroic of you.”
“I’m no hero.” He shook his head, his expression suddenly sober. “Just a realist. I know what they can do to people. And I wouldn’t want them doing that to you. Or anyone for that matter.” He paused. “Not me either. Not again.”
Min drew in a breath.
“Trust me on this,” he said softly. “Hide here ‘til the storm blows over.”
He was right. Those few moments had been terrifying. She felt like she had very little control over what they would do or say—what they’d want from her. She wasn’t the kind of person to court publicity for herself. She needed to hide. And frankly, hiding here was a pretty fine option. Stupidly, for some unknown reason, she did feel safer with him. At least in that respect. She turned and walked down the length of the hallway and opened the door to the guest bedroom farthest from his. “Alright, but you’re at one end of the apartment, I’m at the other.”
“No need to meet in the middle?” He followed her right to her door.
“No need at all.”
“I don’t think it’s going to be quite like that,” he said softly.
“Why n-n-not?” She leaned into the doorframe for support.
“Because,” he said slowly, carefully. “What we have, Ms Jones, is chemistry.”
“Oh please.” She tried to bring back her earlier anger. “What we have here, is a horndog guy who can’t help trying it on with the one woman he currently has access to.”
He shook his head. “No. We have chemistry. You and me.”
She didn’t try to deny it. She stuttered badly when she tried to lie. But she tried to side-step it again. “You have chemistry with anything that breathes.”
“Insulting and incorrect. I have standards. And so do you. But even though you don’t want to want me, you do. Want me to prove it?”
Oh hell, how did he plan to do that? Her heart raced
as adrenalin surged through her body. “You think I c-c-can’t resist y-y-you?”
His lips quirked. “You up for testing it?”
She’d never met a man so forthrightly outrageous. So determined. And so sexy. Damn it. “I c-can resist.”
She hoped.
“Probably.” To her surprise he agreed with her.
“That’s what makes us human, right?” he added. “Free will. Or will power. Mind over matter. But that doesn’t change the fact that the matter—the body—wants. Your body wants mine.” He ran his fingers down her throat, tracing the tide of color washing her head to toe. Gently he pressed his fingers against her thudding pulse at the base of her neck, then slid them a fraction up to that column that so often tightened and rendered her mute. “And mine definitely wants yours.”
“Sssstop,” she hissed. She needed him to be silent.
“It’s a good thing. Going to make the engagement more believable.” He chuckled. “The way you look at me.”
“The way I—” She registered the laughter in his eyes and with sheer force of will, quelled her explosion. She lifted her chin instead. “What about the way y-you look at me?”
“Yeah, everyone is going to know how badly I want to drag you into a corner and kiss you ‘til you come,” he nodded.
Kiss her where? She squeezed her thighs together as his words ignited want within her. Oh yes, she wanted to come. She hadn’t come in so long. And she only had to look at him to—
Hell, the man was impossible. “And that d-doesn’t embarrass you?” she asked weakly.