Desire shot through me, thick and hot. She was rousing the warrior in me, making me want to fight. Take this to the bedroom where we could work out our disagreement in a more private and ultimately more satisfying way.
Mercifully, at that point the waitress delivered the drinks, giving me a moment to get my temper, not to mention my rapidly hardening cock, under control.
What I should not be doing was sitting here with her as though we were on a date, but that would be to admit she was getting to me and I wasn’t going to do that.
Besides, she hadn’t accepted my proposition yet and I wasn’t leaving until she had. It had become a matter of pride now and I never conceded a fight.
‘Not even if it meant saving your family’s company?’ I asked casually, playing my ace.
‘Oh, I see. So this is blackmail, then?’ Green sparks of anger glittered in her eyes, making my dick twitch in response.
Christ, the fire in her was sexy. The way she refused to back down got me hard as much as it irritated the shit out of me.
‘No, of course not.’ I gritted my teeth. ‘But I promise you there isn’t anything dodgy going on.’
‘Lying sounds pretty dodgy to me.’
You’re going to have to tell her about Dumont.
Because clearly she wasn’t going to agree to anything until I did. Fuck.
Lifting my glass, I downed the Scotch in one go, scowling.
I didn’t relish the idea of telling her about Dumont, but then not telling her made it seem as if I gave a damn about her opinion of me and I didn’t.
At all.
I put the empty Scotch tumbler down on the low table in front of the couch and met her gaze.
She had those pretty, slender fingers wrapped around her glass, and I had to drag my focus away from them, my brain helpfully replaying memories of how those fingers had felt stroking my cock through my jeans, then adding fantasies of how good they’d feel if there were no denim between us. If they were wrapped around my dick...
Focus, arsehole.
‘Fine, you want to know why I want those particular islands?’ I didn’t bother adjusting my surly tone. ‘Because my half-brother, Sebastian Dumont, also wants them and I don’t want him to have them.’
Ellie frowned, studying me over the rim of her glass. She still had her chauffeur’s cap on and there was something vaguely endearing about how she was sitting there so primly in her uniform in a dark club with thumping music.
‘Okay,’ she said slowly. ‘So why don’t you want him to have them? I mean, I have four brothers, so I sort of understand.’
Yes, she might. Then again, her family had a certain level of privilege. Her father built supercars, for fuck’s sake. You didn’t do that without money, regardless of his financial difficulties now.
She must have seen something in my face because suddenly sympathy flooded through her expression. ‘Oh, hell. Is this painful for you?’ She leaned forward and put one of those delicate hands on my arm. ‘I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to. I just get curious. Tell me to piss off if it’s too much.’
The concern in her eyes jolted through me like an electric shock, the light touch of her bare skin against mine only deepening the sensation.
People never looked at me like that, as if my feelings mattered to them. Usually because I was too busy showing them how little theirs mattered to me.
Yet right here, right now, despite how grumpy and rude I’d been, Ellie was looking at me with sympathy and concern.
As if I mattered to her.
Which, given the way you’ve been treating her, is absolutely undeserved.
A muscle flickered in my jaw, my chest feeling suddenly tight. ‘You’d better not touch me like that, Miss Little,’ I said brusquely. ‘Not if you don’t want to be naked and on your back right here on this couch.’
That’s right, make it about sex.
I wasn’t making it about sex. It was about sex. Certainly it had nothing to do with the constriction in my chest, the ache in the vicinity of my heart.