Melanie Milburne - Engaged To Her Ravensdale Enemy

His eyes went to her mouth, lingering there for endless, heart-stopping seconds. ‘Ever wondered what would happen if we kissed?’

Like just about every day for the last seven years. ‘You’d get your face slapped, that’s what.’

A smile hitched up one side of his mouth. ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought.’

Jaz felt like her heart rate was trying to get into the Guinness Book of Records. She could smell those lime and lemongrass notes of his aftershave and something else that was one part musk and three parts male. ‘But you’re not going to do it, right?’

He moved around her mouth like a metal detector just above the ground where something valuable was hidden. He didn’t touch down but he might as well have because she felt the tingling in her lips as if he was transmitting raw sexual energy from his body to hers. ‘You think about it, don’t you? About us getting down to business.’

Oh, dear God in heaven, where is my willpower? Jaz thought as her senses went haywire. She had never wanted to be kissed more in her life than right then. She had never wanted to feel a man’s arms go around her and pull her into his hard body. Desire moved through her like a prowling, hungry beast looking for satiation. She felt it in her blood, the tick of arousal. She felt it in her breasts, the prickly sensation of them shifting against the lace of her bra as if they couldn’t wait for him to get his hands or mouth on them. She felt it in her core, the pulse and contraction of her inner muscles in anticipatory excitement. ‘No, I don’t. I never think about it.’

He gave a soft chuckle as he stepped back from her. ‘No, nor do I.’

Jaz stood in numb silence as he went back to the island bench to pick up his hot chocolate. She watched as he lifted the mug to his lips and took a sip. He put the mug down and cocked a brow at her. ‘Something wrong?’

She pushed herself away from the doorframe, tucking her hair back over one shoulder with a hand that wasn’t as steady as she would have liked. ‘We haven’t discussed the rules about our engagement.’

‘Rules?’

Jaz gave him a look. ‘Yes, rules. Not your favourite word, is it?’

His eyes glinted. ‘Far as I’m concerned, they’re only there to be broken.’

She steeled her spine. ‘Not this time.’

‘Is that a dare?’

Jaz could feel every cell in her body being pulled and tugged by the animal attraction he evoked in her. She couldn’t understand why someone she hated so much could have such a monumental effect on her. She wanted to throw herself at him, tear at his clothes and crawl all over his body. She wanted to lock her mouth on his and tangle her tongue with his in an erotic salsa. She wanted him inside her body. She could feel the hollow vault of her womanhood pulsating with need. She could even feel the dew of her intimate moisture gathering. She wanted him like a drug she knew she shouldn’t have. He was contraband. Dangerous. ‘Is the thought of being celibate for a week or two really that difficult for you?’

He gave a lip shrug. ‘Never done it before, so I wouldn’t know.’

Jaz mentally rolled her eyes. ‘Do you have shares in a condom manufacturer or something?’

His dark eyes gleamed with amusement. ‘Now there’s an idea.’

She picked up her mug of chocolate, not to drink, but to give her hands something to do in case they took it upon themselves to touch him. ‘I find your shallow approach to relationships deeply offensive. It’s like you only see women as objects you can use to satisfy a bodily need. You don’t see them as real people who have feelings.’

‘I have the greatest respect for women. That’s why I’m always honest with them about what I want from them.’

Jaz eyeballed him. ‘I think it’s because you’re scared of commitment. You can’t handle the thought of someone leaving you so you don’t let yourself bond with them in the first place.’

He gave a mocking laugh. ‘You got a printout of that psychology degree you bought online?’

‘That’s another thing you do,’ Jaz said. ‘You joke your way through life because being serious about stuff terrifies you.’

His mouth was smiling but his eyes were not. They had become as hard as flint. ‘Ever wondered why your three fiancés have dumped you before you could march them up the aisle?’

Jaz ground her teeth together until her jaw ached. ‘Myles hasn’t dumped me. We’re on a break. It’s not the same as being...breaking up.’

‘You’re a ballbreaker. You don’t want a man. You want a puppet. Someone you can wind around your little finger to do what you want when you want. No man worth his testosterone will stand for that.’

Jaz could feel her anger straining at the leash of her control like a feral dog tied up with a piece of cotton. Her fingers around the mug of chocolate twitched. How she would love to spray it over Jake’s arrogant face. ‘You enjoy humiliating me, don’t you? It gives you such a big, fat hard-on, doesn’t it?’

His jaw worked as if her words had hit a raw nerve. ‘While we’re playing Ten Things I Hate About You, here’s another one for my list. You need to get over yourself. You’ve held onto this ridiculous grudge for far too long.’

Jaz saw the hot chocolate fly through the air before she fully registered she’d thrown it. It splashed over the front of his T-shirt like brown paint thrown at a wall.

Jake barely moved a muscle. He was as still as a statue on a plinth. Too still.

The silence was breathing, heaving with menace.

But then he calmly reached over the back of his head, hauled the T-shirt off, bunched it up into a rough ball and handed it to her. ‘Wash it.’

Jaz swallowed as she looked at the T-shirt. She had lost control. A thing she had sworn she would never do. Crazy people like her mother lost control. They shouted and screamed and threw things. Not her. She never let anyone do that to her. A tight knot of self-disgust began to choke her. Tears welled up behind her eyes, escaping from a place she had thought she had locked and bolted for good. Tears she hadn’t cried since that night when she had finally made it back to her bedroom with shame clinging to her like filth. No amount of showering had removed it. If she thought about that night she would feel it clogging every pore of her skin like engine grease. She took the T-shirt from him with an unsteady hand. ‘I’m sorry...’

‘Forget about it.’

I only wish I could, Jaz thought. But when she finally worked up the courage to look up he had already turned on his heel and gone.

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