His profile hardened. ‘I don’t have any family; I was just using the word metaphorically,’ he grated. ‘We’re talking about you.’
She recoiled. ‘And you think of me in a sisterly way?’
‘Of course not—you know what I mean.’ He cast her an accusing look. ‘You’re too good for him.’
‘You mean I’m a goody-goody,’ she said resentfully. She wound down the window to cool her cheeks in the rushing air. It was true. Becoming Drake’s lover was the baddest thing she had ever done, she brooded. Of course, having an illegitimate baby was about to put paid to that goody-goody image for ever!
‘Well, I happen to think his music has always been terrific,’ she said defiantly. ‘Even when he was with Hard Times. They produced some classics of the hard-rock genre—’
‘Yeah, and thanks to that he has enough groupies hot on his tail. He doesn’t need you drooling over him, too.’
That was the second time in a few days she had been insulted by the same accusation. ‘I am not a groupie!’
‘No? What is it with you, then? Have you started giving off some pheromone that announces you’re available? You never even notice other men when you’re with me, but all of a sudden you’re flirting with everything in pants—first Ken, then Steve—’
‘Flirting?’ Kate spluttered. ‘I was attempting to engage in normal conversation with two men I’d never met before. If there was flirting going on, your friends were the ones doing it. And that was only because you were bristling like a dog around a bone. You’re so jealous you can’t even see—’
‘Jealous!’
She gasped as he suddenly swerved, and pulled into a rest stop carved out of the bush-covered cliff at the side of the road, no longer trusting himself to drive. He yanked on the brake and cut the engine, turning to confront her across the console with a savage face. ‘That’s rich, coming from you.’
She tried to dial back her anger in the face of his, realising that her not-so-innocent prodding had stirred up a hornet’s nest, but determined to stand up for her rights. ‘Oh, I see—it’s all right for you to dangle another woman under my nose and accuse me of being jealous, but when the shoe’s on the other foot it’s a different matter.’
‘Don’t ever accuse me of being jealous,’ he spat at her.
‘Why not? It’s not a dirty word.’
‘It is to me,’ he said, so thickly he could hardly get the words out.
‘But—why?’
He gave her a look of impotent fury. Neither of them heard Prince whine in the back seat. ‘I’m not that person,’ he said through his teeth.
‘What person?’ And when he remained silent, she nudged him: ‘A little bit of jealousy is usually considered healthy in a relationship.’
‘In a healthy relationship, yes. In an unhealthy relationship it can be dangerous for everyone involved,’ he said rawly. ‘It can eat a person up from the inside and be hugely destructive.’
She felt a frisson of fear. That sounded very like personal experience talking. ‘What do you classify as an unhealthy relationship? Is that what we have?’
He angrily pushed away the past, his eyes hot as they slammed into hers. ‘No, of course not, because we know how to control it, we don’t let it control us—we’re equals.’
‘And what if I don’t want control any more?’ she challenged recklessly. ‘What if I want something different?’
The heat in his eyes turned molten. ‘Is that what the matter is, Kate? Is life getting too tame for you when I’m away? Can’t get any satisfaction? The lack of sex making you edgy and restless…sending you out looking for diversions?’
He leaned over, flipped open the clasp of her seat belt and dragged her against his chest, pinning her hips across the central console. ‘Well, here’s a diversion for you!’
His hot mouth sealed over hers, his hand tunnelling up under her shiny mass of hair to cup the back of her delicate skull, tipping her head to give him deeper access to the moist, satiny cavern. His tongue stabbed, stroked, enticed…the slight roughness of his jaw scraping her chin, his musky male scent teasing her nostrils, filling her with a familiar sense of heady abandonment.
His mouth slid around to her ear, his teeth nipping then sucking suggestively at the tender lobe.
She shuddered, her hands clenching on his shoulders, fingers digging through his shirt into hard muscle, and his hot breath fanned the sensitive nerves behind her ears as he laughed roughly. ‘Oh, yes, you like that, don’t you? I know all the things that turn you on…’He used his tongue to stroke the delicate little nub of flesh, sending fresh quivers through her body. ‘You like the things I do to you, because you know I can give you exactly want you want…’
The hand pressing on the middle of her back moved around to shape her breast through the soft tee shirt, cupping the soft weight and his thumb stroking her stiffening nipple through the intricate lace of her bra as he kissed his way across her throat to tease and play with the dainty lobe of her other ear.
‘For instance, I know that when I’m doing this, you’re remembering about how it feels when I suckle that other, even more exquisitely sensitive little bud…’he whispered roughly. ‘You know the one…the secret one that’s tingling right now between your legs, making you long to bite and claw and scream for me, the way you do when we’re in bed…’
Kate’s hips writhed helplessly against the hard console as she squeezed her thighs together to try and ease the forbidden throb intensified by his taunting words. His hand tightened on her breast, compressing the pleasure into an even greater density, drawing at her thrusting nipple in a rhythmic counterpoint to his softly suckling mouth.