Her stomach knotted with nerves and alarm and a million other things she wasn’t sure she wanted to acknowledge. ‘So what are you planning to do?’ she said, looking up at him and fixing a cool little smile to cover up all the unsettling emotions spinning around inside her. ‘Use your superior physical strength to get what you want?’
Will went still and a muscle started ticcing in his jaw and Bella’s skin prickled with panic. God. What was she doing, baiting him like this? Was she nuts?
‘I wouldn’t have to,’ he said, taking a step towards her and slowly and deliberately lowering his gaze to her mouth.
Her throat as dry as if she’d swallowed every grain of sand in the Sahara, Bella swallowed hard and raced through her options. Telling him what she’d meant would be mortifying, yes, but a damn sight safer than being on the receiving end of one of Will’s spine-tingling kisses, which was undoubtedly what he was talking about.
‘OK,’ she said with an indifferent shrug. ‘Fine. All I meant was that, f
or all I know, you might make a habit of ravishing women on the back seat of your car.’
For a second there was silence. Will visibly reeled and as he went pale Bella experienced a brief pang of remorse.
Which vaporised the instant his reaction elbowed its way to the surface.
‘What the hell?’ he roared, his eyes glittering and his hands clenching. ‘God, you push too far, Bella.’
Bella lifted her chin and, with as little control over her behaviour as a train careering off the rails, pushed again. ‘I can’t help but notice you haven’t addressed my point.’
‘I can’t believe you have to ask.’
‘I can’t believe you haven’t answered.’
Will hauled himself under control as if remembering where they were. ‘Of course I don’t make a habit of ravishing women on the back seat of my car,’ he ground out. ‘You were the first. And, frankly, I hope, the last. Because every bloody time I go anywhere in it, it all comes rushing back to me and I have to get Bob to pull over and let me out. Which would be fine if I was in any state to walk.’ His eyes blazed. ‘But the memory of you, of what we did, makes walking pretty bloody impossible. You think I’d want to repeat that?’
‘Oh.’ Bella blinked, too shell-shocked by what he’d just said to know how to respond. ‘Well. Good.’
‘Good? Good? It isn’t good. It’s hell on earth. I can’t stop thinking about you. You’re in here,’ he growled, jabbing at his temple, ‘all the damn time. And you’ve been so bloody glacial and aloof and distant this evening, it’s been driving me nuts.’
‘Oh,’ she said again. ‘Sorry.’
‘Are you?’ he grated. ‘Really?’ He closed the distance between them and her heart began to thunder. ‘Then make it up to me,’ he muttered, planting one hand on the wall beside her head, pinning her to the wall with his hips and slamming his mouth down on hers.
Bella didn’t have a chance to protest even if she’d wanted to. Which she didn’t. Because actually she wasn’t sorry in the slightest. She was stunned. Thrilled. And desperately relieved.
Her lips parted automatically beneath the hot hard pressure of his mouth and his tongue thrust between them. As her arms wound around his neck her mind went blank and she turned into one mass of quivering sensation.
Teeth clashing, his tongue tangled with hers, stroking and caressing her while his hand slid from the wall to her head and buried itself in her hair. Her heart hammered, desire flooded through her and she moaned.
‘I knew it,’ he muttered, breaking off the kiss to slide his mouth along her jaw and then down the side of her neck. ‘So much heat. So much better than all that horrible iciness.’
Bella dropped her head back and arched against him, revelling in the feel of all that muscle, all that hardness and strength plastered against her.
His mouth found hers again and his hand slid up her side to curve round and cup her breast. Bella groaned, pressed herself closer and rubbed herself against him, so desperate with the need to feel him deep inside her that she didn’t give a damn about where they were.
‘God, how could you even think about cancelling our date when there’s this?’ he muttered against her mouth.
And just like that, Bella froze, his words obliterating the desire consuming her as effectively as any bucket of cold water.
Oh, God. What was she doing? Clinging to him like a limpet, wrapping herself around him like an octopus and kissing him as if he were the last man alive.
More to the point, what was she thinking? What had happened to the assurances she’d made to herself that she was no longer interested in Mr Right Now? And wasn’t she supposed to have moved on? Ha. If she hadn’t just had such a big wake-up call, the furthest she’d have moved on would have been to the nearest private horizontal surface.
Desire flooded back at the thought of getting naked and horizontal with Will, and Bella swallowed as her body began to tremble. Lord, it would be so easy to give in. To sink against him and say yes to the demands his body, and hers, were making. So easy to let him take her home and make love to her all night. And so easy to embark on a torrid nostrings affair.
But that wasn’t what she wanted, was it?
‘Bella?’