Keeping Her Up All Night

‘Well, well. Amber,’ he said, in his deep growl of a voice. ‘Nice of you to drop by.’

Was he trying to be funny? No doubt in his black tee shirt and the artfully scruffy jeans clinging to his bronzed, muscled frame he was exactly the sort of testosterone machine certain women might have enjoyed bouncing a bit of stimulating repartee back and forth with …

She wasn’t one of them.

‘That noise you’re making,’ she rasped. ‘I’m trying to sleep and it’s disturbing me.’

He lifted his black brows. ‘At six in the evening? You should get a life, sweetheart.’

He started to close the door, but Amber was quick. She shoved her foot into the space. ‘Now, wait a minute. I have a life. A busy life. And it’s because you’ve been assaulting Jean’s piano …’ She shook her head, outraged at the scandal of it. Jean’s beautiful Steinway … ‘You and your friends with those stupid drums … That’s why I need to sleep at six in the evening.’

He looked at her for a long, considering moment, his strong brows still raised in disbelief. ‘You don’t like music?’

Her? Whose first steps had been a dance? She clenched her teeth. ‘I like music, mister. When I hear it. I’ve already asked you politely. Now, if you don’t keep your noise down …’

‘Ah. Here it comes. The threat.’ He tilted his head to one side and made a thorough appraisal of her from head to toe.

The full scorching force of bold masculine interest lasered through the thin fabric of her clothes. She grew conscious that in her rush she’d chosen a close-fitting top with a deep neckline, she wasn’t wearing a bra, and her feet were bare. Only with difficulty did she prevent herself from crossing her arms over her breasts.

‘I love women who talk tough,’ he said, with a lascivious twitch of a black brow. ‘What will you do to me?’

Wild words rocketed to her tongue. The frustrations and anxieties she’d been repressing over days seethed inside their cage. She wanted to rip open his arrogant jugular with her teeth and nails, claw at his lean face, draw his insolent blood.

He broke into a laugh and flash of white, even teeth lit his face. ‘Don’t do it. Why don’t you come in and we’ll see if we can work something out?’

She drew herself up. ‘Look, Mr …’ she hissed.

‘Guy. Guy Wilder.’ His sexy mouth broke into a smile, but she didn’t care that it illuminated his rather harsh face like a sunburst and made him handsome.

‘Whatever.’ Her breath came in short bursts, as if Vesuvius was seething inside her, alive and molten. ‘I came here to ask if your band can practise somewhere else. If you can’t be more considerate I’ll report you to the Residents’ Committee.’

Amusement crept into his voice. ‘We seem to be getting a bit heated.’

‘Does Jean even know you’re here?’

At her escalating pitch his black brows made an eloquent upward twitch. ‘Not only does my dear aunt know I’m here, she wants me to be here. I’ll give you her address, all right? You can check up. Set your mind at rest.’

‘I know Jean well, and I know she would strongly object to your upsetting her neighbours. She would never have agreed to your setting up your band in here night and day.’

‘It isn’t here night and day.’ His quiet, measured tone made a mockery of her emotion. ‘I write songs. The band you’ve been privileged to hear the last couple of nights—in the early part of the evening, let me remind you—were unable to use their usual venue. They have a gig coming up so they needed a run-through. That means …’

‘I know what it means,’ she snapped. ‘And it was no privilege. You might as well know now—your band sucks.’

His black eyebrows flew up and his eyes drifted over her in sardonic appreciation. ‘I’ll make sure I pass your critique on to the guys.’

She could hardly believe she’d said such a rude thing, but it gave her a reckless satisfaction. Even if he was Jean’s nephew, he’d made her suffer.

If he was. She had some vague recollection of Jean’s stories about various family members. There was the brilliant one who wanted to direct movies, the scientist who’d fallen in love on a voyage to Antarctica, the boy whose girlfriend—the love of his life, Jean had said—had stood him up at the altar and run away with a soldier. She couldn’t remember any mention of a musician.

The guy moved slightly. Enough for Amber’s critical eye to catch a glimpse of the indoor garden Jean kept in her foyer. Shocked by what she saw, she couldn’t restrain herself. ‘Just look at those anthuriums. Jean would be furious if she knew you were letting her precious plants die. Surely she explained her watering system to you?’

He gave a careless shrug. ‘She may have said something.’

‘And what about her fish?’

‘Fish?’

‘Don’t tell me you haven’t been feeding them? That aquarium is Jean’s pride and joy.’ She glared at him—at the grey eyes alight in his dark unshaven face, his black eyebrows tilted in quizzical amusement. She’d never in all of her twenty-six years wanted so much to do violence to someone.

‘I’m not sure how the fish are doing,’ he said smoothly. ‘Why don’t you come inside and check them out? You can take inventory while you’re here, in case I’ve damaged something.’

She caught the sarcasm but didn’t allow it to deter her. She pushed past him into Jean’s beautiful, immaculate flat and halted in the middle of the sitting room.

Twilight had invaded. Only one lamp was lit, casting a soft apricot glow, but with the skylight in the foyer and the glow from the aquarium it was enough for her to see the damage. Newspapers were thrown carelessly on the coffee table beside a functioning laptop, more scattered on the rug. A sheet of Jean’s expensive piano music had been tossed on the floor as well, near to where a couple of her Swedish crystal wine glasses rested against the rumpled sofa.

‘Better, don’t you think?’ The guy’s smug, complacent gaze shifted from the disaster scene to connect with hers. ‘Some rooms are like some people. Just cry out for a little messing up.’

Words failed Amber. Too late to try resolving this conflict without the use of aggression. This man deserved aggression—he begged for it—and she was in too deep now to pull out.

She snatched up Jean’s precious sonata from the floor, then marched over to the aquarium. It was almost annoying to see the tank as tranquil as ever. No bloated bodies floated on its placid surface.

She glanced back and saw him watching her with his thumbs hooked into his belt, a quirk to his mouth. ‘You have been feeding them, haven’t you?’ In her aggravation she rolled Jean’s sonata—rolled it and rolled it into a tighter and tighter cylinder. ‘This was just a ploy to get me in here, wasn’t it?’

He spread his hands. ‘Aha. You’ve guessed my master plan.’

She made a sharp, repudiating gesture with the sonata. ‘Don’t you mock me. I have every right to complain about your noise.’

‘Sure you do.’

He moved a couple of steps, so his big, lean body was close. Close enough for her to feel the heat of him. She couldn’t step backwards without crashing into the fish tank, so she stood her ground, her heart rate escalating.

His growly voice was deep and smooth as butter. ‘All right, I’m sorry to have stirred you up, Amber. I can see you’re a woman of strong passions. I think maybe you are a bit tired. People get overwrought.’ He drew his brows together and looked narrowly at her. ‘Amber? Are you sure that’s your name?’

‘What?’

‘I think it should be Indigo. Or Lavender. Your oldies must have been drunk.’ Missing her unamused glare, he shrugged. ‘Never mind. I accept your apology. How about a drink?’

‘I’m not apologising.’ Her voice trembled as she lost the final vestiges of control and reasonable behaviour. ‘And I don’t want a drink. Just look what you’ve done to Jean’s lovely home. You have no right to touch her precious piano. You’re a—a vandal. I don’t want to know you, or see you, or hear any more of your awful, awful noise.’

He studied her with a solemn, meditative gaze. But she knew, damn him, it was an act. Underneath he was dying to laugh. At her.

‘You’re a bit wired up.’

He advanced further, so that his chest was a mere five centimetres from her breasts. She inhaled the clean, male scent of him and sensed something else in him besides laughter. A high-voltage buzz of electricity that charged her own nerves with adrenaline.

‘You should calm down.’

His sensual gaze touched her everywhere, caressed her hair, her throat, lingered on her mouth.

‘I think I know a way I can help you to relax.’

‘Oh.’ Fury must have overheated her brain, because she lifted Jean’s sonata and whacked him across the face with it.

Danger flashed in his eyes like a lightning strike. She watched, aghast, as a thin red line appeared where the rolled up edge of the paper had struck his cheekbone.

How could she have?

The universe shuddered to a stop. There was a moment when they both stood paralysed. Then in a quick, shocking movement he caught hold of her arms.

‘You need to learn some control,’ he said softly, steel in his voice, his eyes.

Her heart took a violent plunge as his hands burned her upper arms. The breath constricted in her throat.

‘Let go of me,’ she said, trying to sound calm while her thunderous heartbeat slammed into her ribs. She blustered the first thing that came into her head. ‘Don’t … don’t you even think of trying to kiss me.’

His brows swept up in surprise, then his rainwater eyes sparkled like diamonds. As if she’d said something funny.

His lashes flickered half the way down. ‘Are you sure you really mean that, Amber?’

Knowing her Freudian slip was flashing a bright neon, while her traitorous lips still tingled with … Well, for goodness’ sake his lips were the most ravishing pair she’d encountered at close range for months. Her chaste, unkissed mouth was making a purely kneejerk and understandable chemical response.

Then, in an avalanche of bodily betrayal, her nipples joined in. She could feel a definite weakening arousal in them of a warming kind and wouldn’t you know it? More arousal, all the way south.

At the exact instant those sensations registered with her a high-voltage, purely sexual flare lit Guy Wilder’s eyes.

‘Take your hands off me.’ His grip slackened at once and she twisted away. ‘Thank you.’ Rubbing an arm, she hissed, ‘There may be women who buckle at the knees when they meet you, Guy Wilder, but I can assure you I’m not one of them.’

The heat intensified in his gleaming gaze. He gave a knowing, sexy laugh. ‘If you say so.’ He crossed to the foyer in a couple of long strides and held the door wide. ‘You’d better run home, little girl, and cool down. The wicked, wicked man might tempt you into doing something you enjoy.’

She brushed past him, racking her brains for a parting gibe. Then, with an insolent smile, she pointed to the angry patch on his cheek. ‘Better put something on that.’

He touched the wound with his fingers. A smile curled the edges of his mouth as he retorted softly, ‘Be seeing you, sweetheart.’

The door clicked to behind her.

Guy stood like a man who’d just been slammed somewhere strange by a tornado. It took some time for his aggravated pulse to ease. The fiery little exchange had stirred him in more ways than one.

He whistled. Whew. What a spitfire.

Nothing like a tempestuous woman to whip up a man’s blood. His creative spirit was zinging. The way she held herself with that straight, proud back. If only he could get her in front of a camera.

He groaned, thinking of the way she’d glided across the room with that lithe, graceful walk. He felt aroused and at the same time amazingly energised, his whole being like an electric rod.

His blood quickened. How long since he’d felt this way?

God, it felt great.

Safe inside her flat, Amber buried her face in her pillow, her mind churning with images of his handsome, taunting face. The things he’d said. The things she’d said.

Run home, little girl. The sheer arrogance of that. She clenched her teeth and tried to think of a hands-off way to murder the beast. Though with what she’d done so far, maybe hands-on would be more fitting. Why had she done such a terrible thing?

She should be wrung with shame, but to be honest she couldn’t even feel very sorry. What was wrong with her? To have actually used violence like some wild virago was completely out of character for her. No one who knew her would believe Amber O’Neill, meek and mild as honeydew, could be capable of behaving with such a lack of restraint.

Well, no one now.

She’d once disgraced herself by pouring a glass of beer over Miguel da Vargas’s handsome, lying head, but that was ancient history. Blood under the bridge. And he’d deserved it. This was all about sleep. If she didn’t get some soon she’d have to be locked up to keep the public safe.

She punched her pillow, tossed and turned, but all to no avail. It was no use. She’d acted like a fool and she knew it. What had happened to her resolve to stay calm in a conflict situation? He’d been the one who’d stayed cool, while she …

She writhed to think of how easily he’d wiped the floor with her. Run home, little girl.

There had to be a way of salvaging her feminine honour.

Suddenly she froze on her bed of nails. She could hear him. He was in there, singing to himself like a man without a care in the world. Or … The thought stung through her agony. A man gloating.

Where was her feminine spirit? Was she just to lie down and take this?

She scrambled off the bed and took a minute or two to whip on a sexy push-up bra and some shoes with heels. She considered changing the rather deep-cut top, then discarded that idea. She didn’t want him to think she’d gone to any trouble.

She smoothed down her skirt, ran a brush through her long hair. A little strategic eyeliner, a spray of perfume. Flicked the puff from her compact over her nose. Then, more presentable this time, more together, more herself—she took a fortifying swig of Vee juice from the fridge, and sashayed to his door for a second time.

Striding up to the bell, she gave it one imperative ring.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.