‘“Be careful”?’
Hewasjealous. Erin could sense it in her bones, somewhere deep inside her. She had no idea why. Did he think that she was his possession because over the years he had never known her to be distracted by another man? Have a social life? Because, from his perspective, her life was devoted to him?
Her blood boiled and yet there was a treacherous thrill in thinking of herself as his possession. She was a feminist through and through and had always been proud of her determination and her drive and her independence and yet…right now in the heat of the tropical night, excitement threaded through her veins like quicksilver.
‘What do you think I should be careful about?’ she queried. ‘Did you think that Thompson might have made a pass at me and I wouldn’t have known what to do about it? That it might have been another bat-flying-in-the-cabin scenario, demanding an urgent rescue from you?’
‘Who knows?’
‘Well, believe it or not,Iknow.’
‘I wouldn’t want you to find yourself in an awkward situation,’ Raffaele said heavily, his voice laced with discomfort as she continued to look at him, steely eyed.
‘Well, thank you very much for your concern, Raffaele. That said, it was misplaced.’
‘I’m not sure you were aware of just how…how…’
‘How what?’
‘How beautiful you looked tonight, Erin. There wasn’t a man in that room who wasn’t staring at you.’
In the sultry heat, with the rustle of trees around them and the darkness turning everything into shadows and shifting angles, Erin stared at him and was ensnared by the glitter in his eyes.
Her heart skipped a beat.
She wondered whether she’d misheard what he had said. Was her mind playing tricks on her? Was she feverishly hallucinating that he had said the very thing she’d always imagined him saying in those wild fantasies she’d had about him?
‘I… I…’ she stammered. ‘S-sorry? I’m not…uh…following you…’
‘Okay, then I guess there’s no harm in making it clearer. You looked amazing tonight, Erin. Stunning…beautiful…sexy. Any more descriptions you might need to get the picture? Every eye in that room was on you, including mine.’
The silence lengthened between them, stretched to breaking point.
‘I could see what that guy wanted to do from a mile away. He wanted to touch what he was staring at. Maybe you didn’t see that but I did. He wanted to do…exactly what I wanted to do…’
Chapter Seven
RAFFAELE HAD NEVERfound himself in a position where he was making a pass at a woman without being absolutely certain that it would be a reciprocal situation. In actual fact, women were often the ones who did the pass-making, with him in the role of obliging recipient.
But that was what he had just done, wasn’t it? Made a pass at Erin? She was staring at him in dumbfounded silence and he couldn’t blame her.
Ifhecouldn’t understand what had just happened there, then what were the chances that she would? Had telepathy ever been one of her many skills?
He stared back at her, gauging her reaction in the steamy darkness and utter silence.
He should have been kicking himself but he wasn’t. In fact it was a struggle not to reach out and do what his body wanted: reach out and trail his finger over her lips and then bring his mouth to hers so that he could taste her.
Sex. Lust. Desire. A place he’d never thought he would ever want to explore with Erin Fisher, but right now it was the only thing he wanted. The alluring pull of the woman who made him laugh and made him think had collided with the intense drag of attraction, one that had roared into life with sudden, blinding ferocity when he’d seen her dancing.
‘It’s late,’ he said abruptly. He stood up and remained standing as she stumbled to her feet.
Erin took a step back from him, desperate to put some distance between them because what he had just said was ringing in her ears.He thought she was sexy? Beautiful? Since when? Had she failed to notice that pigs had started flying?
‘It’s late, yes,’ she said feebly, ‘and I’m guessing that you must have had more to drink than you imagine. That rum punch was really strong.’
But even as she spoke, the glittering intent in his eyes had her spellbound.
‘I never drink more than I should. Do you think I must have had too much to drink because of what I’ve just said to you?’
