CHAPTER NINE
‘OH!’ HERRESPONSE gave inadequate a new meaning, but she didn’t know what else to say. What would be an improvement?
Don’t do it againwouldn’t be appropriate, or, more likely, don’t stop...
‘We’ll be late.’ Suddenly she was the one that couldn’t hold his eyes.
‘It’s allowed—you’re the guest of honour.’ He dragged a hand over his dark hair, thinking about how warm and perfect she had felt in his arms. The promise of passion he had always sensed in her had burnt up into life the moment he’d touched her.
It was easy to see that Kat could become the drug of choice to any man, so long as he didn’t mind sharing her with a multitude of good causes.
Theos, he really didn’t envy that man!
Even as he congratulated himself he recognised that, but for the obligation he felt to Alekis, he would be that man, at least for a night, which was in itself another problem.
The insight he had gained into Kat’s character led him to doubt that she had a casual attitude to sex. He doubted she would look on it as a healthy physical outlet. For her it would come wrapped up in sentiment. Of course, there were many men out there willing to accept those terms for the joy of bedding her.
Nothing of his thoughts showed in his face as they continued to walk side by side the last few yards, not touching, but he could still sense her leaping pulse.
‘You’ll be fine, you know.’
She gave an odd little laugh and lifted her head at the abrupt comment. ‘Will I?’ At that moment she didn’t feel as if she knew anything. She ran her tongue across the outline of her lips and gave another laugh. Hell, she hadn’t even known her own name when he’d kissed her.
‘Be interested...’ he said, the effort of dragging his eyes off her mouth making him sweat. ‘Be yourself.’
Kat swallowed down another bubble of hysterical laughter. How was she meant to be herself,or even sane, after he had just kissed her like that? Being herself and kissing him back was part of the problem. Herself would be grabbing him and making him do it again.
‘Now that is something I never thought I’d hear you say!’ Wow, not even a quiver. She was extremely proud of herself.
He arched a sardonic brow. ‘Why?’
‘Because I get the impression me being me irritates the hell out of you tonight.’ Maybe he had kissed her to shut her up, she thought, nursing her resentment.
He stopped short of the open door, from which the sounds of music and the hum of conversation and laughter emanated, and looked down at her.
‘It isn’t you I find—’
‘Irritating?’she supplied, slightly confused and at the same time excited by the intensity in his manner, though next to the post-kiss confusion that still blocked her normal thought processes it barely even registered.
‘Not the right word but it will do. It’s the situation, Katina, that I find extremely...irritating.’ Theos, wanting her was killing him.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said, thinking of the warm, clean but musky male smell of his body when he had kissed her. Would he do it again?
‘Are you sure about that?’
She looked away, suddenly more nervous of the glow in his eyes than what lay in the room. Not nervous, excited. She ran her tongue across the dry outline of her lips. It was just a kiss...stop trying to read things into it.
She hefted out a deep sigh. ‘Right, let’s get this thing over with.’
He nodded.
She was incredibly glad for the light touch of his hand on her elbow as they walked into the room, because walking into a room beside Zach made it a dead certainty most of the room would not be looking at you. When Zach walked into a room, any room, he would always be the focus of attention.
There was a short static pause in the audible social hum as more and more people turned to look at them, from where they were already gathered in small groups, chatting, laughing, drinking the wine being offered by the staff.
The sea of faces was actually more a small pond, she told herself as she willed her feet that felt glued to the floor to move.
‘Showtime, Kat.’ He heard her whisper before flashing him a look from her topaz eyes and lifting her chin and walking away from him.