He frowned down at her. ‘I suppose this is how you handle difficult conversations now, is it?’ he asked. ‘When things get a bit hot to handle, you block it out by bringing on a fainting episode.’
Keira jerked upright in the bed, her eyes flashing at him in fury. ‘I did not bring on anything! I told you, I’ve been sick recently. I haven’t felt well for a month, if you must know.’
There was a taut little silence.
‘Are you pregnant?’ he asked.
She stared at him in shock. ‘What sort of question is that?’ she asked. ‘Of course I’m not pregnant.’
‘I would have thought it was a reasonable one to ask,’ he said. ‘You are a young sexually active woman.’
‘I am not sexually active. I haven’t had sex since…’ she paused as she bit her lip ‘…since that night…’
His expression communicated his disbelief. ‘You positively ooze sex, Keira. As soon as you walked into my office, I could feel it coming off you like an invisible force.’
She moistened her mouth as his dark gaze slid over her in indolent appraisal. Her breasts tightened and her stomach hollowed and clenched simultaneously.
‘You are a very sensual woman, Keira,’ he continued. ‘There are few men who could resist what you have to offer.’
‘I’m not offering anything.’
His lip curled. ‘I bet if I got into that bed beside you I could have you underneath me screaming out in ecstasy within minutes. You just cannot help yourself. You are built for pleasure, cara. I am getting hard just thinking about it.’
Keira couldn’t stop her eyes going to his pelvis. A tremor of desire rumbled through her belly and her heart began to step up its pace.
He came to sit on the edge of her bed, right next to her thighs, one of his hands capturing hers and laying it against his throbbing heat. ‘Can you feel what you do to me, Keira?’
She could and it terrified her. Her fingers itched to explore and the barrier of his clothes became a torment. She wanted to feel that satin-covered steel against her fingertips. She wanted to taste that sexy combination of salt and musk on his skin, to feel his explosive release in every intimate place.
‘B-but you hate me,’ she said, trying to pull her hand away without success.
‘Yes, but it does not interfere with my desire for you; in fact, I believe it might even enhance it.’
‘That’s barbaric,’ she said, giving her hand another vicious tug. ‘Besides, I thought you said you didn’t intend to share your body with me. You told me you no longer felt any attraction towards me.’
He brought her hand up to his mouth, his tongue tasting each of her fingertips in turn, his smouldering dark gaze locked with hers. ‘Let us say I am considering the fors and againsts,’ he said.
‘What you need to be considering is my consent,’ she put in archly.
His mouth tilted in a mocking smile. ‘You have already given me your consent,’ he said. ‘We are still legally married, remember?’
‘We’re officially separated.’
‘Not any more.’
‘This isn’t a real reconciliation,’ she said, panic beating like a drum in her chest. ‘You told me it wasn’t.’
‘In the eyes of the law, it is. We have resumed cohabiting as man and wife.’
‘I don’t want to be your wife, either for real or pretend,’ she said with stiff force. ‘I don’t want to live with a man who hates me with every breath he takes. I can think of nothing worse.’
‘I do not know why you are so upset. You were the one to destroy our marriage.’
‘I didn’t do it alone!’ she cried.
‘No, indeed you did not,’ he said coolly, although his dark gaze burned with anger. ‘You did it with Garth Merrick.’
‘I didn’t mean that,’ she said, blowing out a