Miranda Lee - Modern Romance - The Best of the Year

‘And talk to her,’ Tabby suggested.

‘What about?’ Acheron demanded with perfect seriousness, freezing as the baby nestled close of its own volition, disconcerted by the alien warmth and weight of her as she dug little hands into the flesh of his shoulder.

‘Stocks and shares if you like. It doesn’t matter at this age. It’s the sound and tone of your voice that matters,’ Tabby explained.

Acheron mumbled a Greek nursery rhyme.

‘And if you walk around the room with her, it might make you feel more relaxed.’

Acheron gritted his teeth and started to tell the baby exactly what he thought of Tabby in Greek, careful to keep the antagonism out of his voice. Amber looked up at him with big trusting brown eyes, and he marvelled at her ability to award that amount of trust to a complete stranger. If the baby could try, he could as well even if it did stick in his throat to be listening to Tabby’s instructions and following them. She maddened him, he acknowledged grimly, gently rubbing Amber’s back as he talked. The baby slowly rested its head down on his shoulder.

‘Give her to me,’ Tabby murmured. ‘She’s going back to sleep.’

‘And so ends lesson one,’ Acheron mocked as she settled Amber back into the cot and covered her again. Only it was not the child he was watching but Tabby. The pale grey silk glimmered in the dull light from the corridor, splaying across her thighs, outlining the plump little curves of her derriere as she bent over the cot rail, prominent nipples visible against the flimsy fabric as she straightened again.

Acheron was hard as a rock by the time he completed that far from fleeting appraisal. ‘You might want to cover up more around me,’ he commented. ‘Or is this a come-on?’

Her violet eyes flew wide as she faltered at the doorway, and she flashed him an incredulous glance back over a narrow shoulder. ‘Do you think you’re irresistible or something?’

Acheron strode over to the doorway. ‘You can’t be that innocent. Men are fairly predictable when there is so much bare skin on display.’

‘I am not on display,’ Tabby countered furiously, crossing her arms defensively over her lightly clad length, sharply disconcerted by the idea that he could see her body beneath the nightie. ‘When I came in I had no idea you would be in here.’

Acheron closed a hand around her wrist and tugged her into the corridor, shutting the door behind him. ‘I like what I see,’ he informed her softly.

Tabby stared up at him with fulminating force, noting the dark shadow of stubble outlining his stubborn jaw line and how that overnight growth enhanced his sheer masculinity. ‘But I’m not offering myself.’

‘No?’ Acheron dipped his handsome head and nibbled at the corner of her inviting mouth, invading with his tongue as soon as she parted her succulent lips. Without further ado, he hauled her up against him, hands weaving across her slender back and then sliding up to glance over the taut peaks of her breasts in a caress that made her shiver.

That single kiss had unholy pulling power. Tabby bargained with herself to continue it. One second, just one second more to feel the hungry plunge of his tongue that raised a riot of damp heat low in her body and then his hands, dear heaven, his hands skimming, brushing the tender tips of her breasts before cupping her urgently sensitive flesh. ‘No,’ she told him shakily.

‘No?’ Wine-dark eyes glittered down at her, and her swollen mouth ran dry because she wanted another kiss, wanted the wildness she experienced beneath his skilled hands, wanted more with a ferocity that terrified her. Long fingers splayed to her spine, tipping her into revealing contact with the erection that his jeans could not conceal. ‘We could have fun for an hour or two.’

‘Do I strike you as that easy?’ Tabby prompted tightly, outraged by the tone of his proposition. Did he think she was flattered by the idea of being his entertainment for a couple of hours? A quick and easy sexual convenience because there was no more appealing prospect available?

His stunning eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t make judgements like that about women. I’m not sexist. I enjoy sex. I’m sure you do as well.’

‘You’re wrong,’ she began heatedly, thinking he was little different from the men who, having bought her a drink, had assumed that they were entitled to her body and could not comprehend her reluctance. Sex as a leisure-time pursuit was not her style.

‘If you haven’t enjoyed sex before then you’ve been with the wrong men,’ Acheron assured her silkily, running a caressing finger along the ripe curve of her lower lip, and the breath feathered deliciously in her throat, a ripple of treacherous, unwelcome response quivering through her slender length.

‘You’re a class act in the persuasion stakes,’ Tabby told him very drily, stepping back out of reach, fighting the unexpected chill of separation from the allure of his warm, vital body. ‘But it’s wasted on me—though I’m a virgin, I’m well aware that a man will tell you practically anything to get you into bed.’

‘A...virgin?’ Ash echoed in an astonished undertone, disbelief clenching his taut dark features. ‘Seriously? Or is that a hook to pull me in deeper?’

Tabby slowly shook her head and then surrendered to laugh out loud. ‘You are so suspicious of women it’s not real. I don’t want to pull you into anything. In fact, I think it would be a very bad idea for us to get that involved.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of involvement...I was thinking of sex,’ Acheron traded smoothly. ‘A simple exchange of pleasure.’

Tabby noted the way he even had to separate involvement from the act of sex and registered that he was positively phobic when it came to the concept of commitment. He did not want her to misunderstand what was on offer: a bodily exchange of pleasure, nothing more, no strings whatsoever. ‘Goodnight,’ she said gruffly, turning on her heel.

‘A virgin...seriously?’ Acheron breathed in her wake, the dark deep richness of his accented drawl vibrating through her in the stillness of the silent apartment.

Tabby turned her head slowly back to him. ‘Seriously.’

Acheron frowned, dark brows drawing together, and stared at her, his eyes gleaming golden with curiosity and fascination in the overhead lights. ‘But why?’

‘I’ve never wanted to.’ Until now, a little voice piped up in her brain, for that passionate kiss and the carnal caress of his well-shaped hands had roused more hunger in Tabby than she had ever felt in her life. A fierce physical hunger that she sensed could easily get out of hand.

‘You wanted me, hara mou...’ Acheron murmured with assurance as she walked away from him, blonde hair streaming down her back like a pale flowing river highlighting the curve of her bottom.

Tabby knew she should say nothing, but she couldn’t resist the little devil inside herself that he provoked and she turned her head again, succumbing to temptation to murmur softly, ‘But obviously...not enough.’

That crack might have affected some men like a challenge, Acheron mused broodingly as he strode back to his room for a cold shower, but he was not one of those men because logic had always ruled his libido. If he slept with her it would clearly get messy, and he hated messy relationships and didn’t tolerate them for longer than it took to delete such women’s numbers from his phone.

He reminded himself of the dire consequences of his last reckless encounter, and it was even worse that Tabby was still a virgin. He found that hard to credit but could not see any advantage in her telling such a lie. A woman who was still a virgin at twenty-five had to have very high expectations of her first lover for why else would she have waited so long? He would not be that man, would never fit that framework or meet the demands she would make. He had been warned and from now on he would keep his distance....