‘It’s not my place to like or dislike him.’ Ethan took the diplomatic line.
Turning against the rail, Eve folded her arms beneath her breasts then looked up at him sagely. ‘But you don’t like him,’ she repeated stubbornly.
Ethan laughed, it was a soft dryly rueful sound that brought his eyes down to meet with hers. It was a mistake; the wrong move. Things began to happen to him that he had been determined he would not let happen. Don Felipe was tossed into oblivion; San Estéban with all its beauty may as well have not been there at all. Eve the witch, the beautiful siren, was all that he was seeing. She had relaxed with him at last, was actually smiling with her eyes, with her lovely mouth. Don’t spoil it, he told himself. Don’t so much as breathe in case you ruin the mood.
This wasn’t easy, Eve was thinking. Maintaining this level of relaxed friendliness was tough when what she really wanted to do was kiss him so badly that it was like a fire in her brain. She’d fallen asleep thinking of this man, had woken up thinking of this man and didn’t dare look into what had gone on in between.
Dreams were ruthless truth-tellers, she mused. ‘Don Felipe,’ she prompted, though she wasn’t interested in the slightest in the Spaniard; it was important that she kept the conversation going, or she might give in and make an absolute fool out of herself.
His eyelashes flickered—long dark silky things that made her lips tingle as if they’d flickered against them. He took in a measured breath that expanded his ribcage and made her breasts sting into peaks. His mouth parted to speak but it wasn’t what he was going to say that held her captive.
‘You have to know a man to draw a considered opinion as to whether you like him or not…’ Ethan dragged his eyes away from her before he did something he shouldn’t. ‘He’s a strange man: very private, cold and remote. Rumour has it that he was disinherited by his father in favour of his half-brother, and didn’t take the decision very well. Went a bit mad for a while, got into a couple of fights, had an accident, which left him scarred in more ways than one. Since then he has been out to prove something—with this resort and all the other investments he has made during the last few years that have earned him a fortune big enough to throw in his family’s face. But does all of that make him a romantic?’ His tone was sceptical to say the least.
‘Then you must be the romantic at work here,’ Eve announced decidedly.
Me—a romantic? Sending a fleeting glance over San Estéban, Ethan shook his dark head. ‘I’m just an architect who likes to leave a place looking as untouched as it was before I arrived…’
Another silence fell. It had probably had to, because neither of them were really thinking about the discussion in hand. Words were appearing from within the mists of other things.
‘Drink,’ Ethan said, filling the gap again.
‘Yes,’ she agreed. Relieved to have an excuse to move, she straightened away from the rail at the same moment that Ethan shifted his stance and made the fatal mistake of looking down at her. That was all that it took to flip the mood right into that one place they’d both been trying to keep away from. Eve saw his eyes dilate, saw the breath grow still in his chest. Her smile began to die along with her relaxed manner, because she knew for certain now what was really going on inside his head.
His tension began to fight with hers. ‘And food,’ he added. ‘We need to eat. The kitchen is stocked with all the usual provisions, but we can eat out if you prefer.’
Eat in or out? Eve tried to make a decision, found she couldn’t because sexual desire lay too thickly in the atmosphere to think of anything else. It would take only one more move, one tiny gesture from either of them, to lick desire into a flame.
‘In,’ she said, choosing. ‘I’ve had enough of crowded places for one day.’ She even managed to send him a semblance of a smile to accompany the reply.
But the smile was the gesture. It made him look at her mouth. Eve released a soft gasp as if she’d just been surprised with a kiss. The flame was licked, her arms unfolded and he was taking their place. They went into each other’s arms without another sane thought, and all it took was the first light brush of their lips to plunge them right back to where they’d cut off on the plane over the Atlantic.
Hungry and hot, it was the kind of kiss that worked on every sense until she was trembling so badly she needed to hang onto something. That something was his neck where the tips of her fingers had curled and had dug in. And he was no better, taking what she offered with an urgency that fed the need. His hands explored her body, his touch sure with knowledge, sensually driven by man at his most practiced: He was not the fumbling boy Raoul had been the night before, a slave to his own urgent needs.
Eve knew the difference. And so Ethan should have understood that—being the sophisticated lover he was reputed to be. But he shot back so abruptly it was like being severed at the neck. ‘What am I doing?’ He began cursing himself. ‘Great move, Ethan,’ he told himself harshly. ‘Great damn move!’
‘You started it!’ Eve threw at him as if he’d implied otherwise.
It swung him round. ‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ he tossed back harshly. ‘You suffered a bad experience only yesterday. If I took advantage of you now, it would make me no better than the bastard who did that to you! I apologise,’ he clipped out. ‘If I ever attempt anything like that again you have my permission to cry—’
Rape, Eve finished when he so obviously couldn’t. And there it was, she realised. In one ill-thought-out sentence Ethan had brought this whole ugly situation back to where it really belonged.
So it is me who makes this happen, she realised. You don’t get two men in one day thinking yo
u’re open to that kind of thing without you giving off something that tells them that!
‘You’re wrong, so stop thinking it,’ he said.
‘Why wrong?’ He had to explain that or it meant nothing!
Ethan made himself look her in the eyes, made himself take the slap of those pained tears that glittered there. ‘You wanted me,’ he explained. ‘You did not want him.’
It was true. Was it true? Too shaken to think straight, she looked away from his grim hard face, and down at her body where she could still feel the lingering pleasure of his touch. With Raoul she’d felt revulsion, only revulsion. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t asked for what he’d tried to do! Did it make a difference that she hadn’t known she’d been doing it? No, it did not. A flirt was a flirt. A tease was a tease. She looked back at Ethan through pain-bright eyes filled with a terrible self-disillusionment.
‘No,’ he denied, knowing what was raking around inside her head. ‘No!’ he repeated and walked back to take her by the shoulders and issue a gentle shake. ‘With him, you screamed, Eve,’ he pointed out gruffly. ‘Even under the influence of whatever he gave you, you screamed loud enough to waken me.’
But that doesn’t mean I didn’t bring it on myself! she thought painfully.
‘You’re beautiful, stunning—irresistible in many ways,’ he went on as if he could read the thoughts tumbling through her head. ‘But ninety-nine per cent of the male population will resist you—unless you don’t want them to.’