The air suddenly crackled with a sensually charged tension that seemed to suck the oxygen from the atmosphere, drawing them deeper into a sensual vortex that swirled around them.
Light-headed, Kat didn’t connect the sound she could hear with her own laboured breathing, her heart thudding like a dull metronome in her chest as she experienced a surge of deep, strength-sapping longing.
Zach watched the pupils in her eyes expand until only a rim of gold remained. He could hear the roar of hunger in his blood and wanted... Theos, how badly he wanted to give himself up to it, sink into her softness and... The muscles in his brown throat rippled as he swallowed and dug deep into the reserves of his frayed self-control.
Kat blinked, confused as Zach suddenly surged to his feet, not quite meeting her eyes as he bent forward, the flickering candlelight throwing the planes and angles of his face into stark relief as he blew out the candles.
The gesture seemed weirdly symbolic to Kat because, along with the candlelight, the intimacy had vanished. Been snuffed out, to be replaced by a cool, businesslike atmosphere as he walked towards the door, having donned the persona of the ruthless tycoon with computer chips, not emotions, in his eyes.
‘I’ll get someone to walk you back to your room.’
She blinked, getting to her feet in confusion as his mercurial mood change made her head spin. ‘Aren’t you—?’
His quick smile was impersonal and distant. It seemed to her he couldn’t get out of the door fast enough. ‘I have some work to get through.’
In the corridor, Zach propped his broad shoulders against the wall and released a long, slow, sibilant sigh. It was not pride enhancing to realise that the only effective way he had been able to see to remove himself from temptation was to remove himself physically.
He levered himself off the wall, aware that if he had escorted her back to her room he might have ended up saying good morning and not goodnight. Even the thought of it now heated his blood in a way that drew a low snarling sound from his throat as he strode off, putting as much distance as possible between himself and the witch who had put a spell on him.