Free A Touch of Heaven by Portia Da Costa Page B

his head again.
    “I was harsh. I shouldn’t have been. I admit that.” It seemed a hollow concession at best, and he hated the memory of her lovely face crumpling in distress.
    “And presumptuous,” she flung back at him, “and arrogant.”
    “Okay, yes, it was arrogant of me to presume that because you wanted to fuck me you’d expect me to get into a serious relationship with you afterwards.” Odd voices, yearnings, muttered in his head. “And it was a shock realizing you were a virgin…it was…was a responsibility.”
    “Which you don’t like. I know that. I only wanted to get rid of my virginity with a man I knew was likely to be pretty damn good in bed.” Anna’s delicate chin came up as she spoke. Her expression was determined and brittle and he didn’t like it at all. “I picked you because I knew you were a player and you could get the job done.”
    Sudden outrage barreled through him, but at her or himself, he wasn’t quite sure. Nevertheless it swept aside all better judgment and pragmatism. It was one thing to have a reputation as a seasoned stud—deserved, admittedly—but to be told he’d been chosen purely as a stallion hurt like a punch in the gut. Especially as he still wasn’t sure she was telling the truth.
    He wanted a drink. He wanted to clear his head, which was suddenly aching. He wanted release, and whether it was emotional or just pure sex, he didn’t care.
    “Well, in view of the fact that I never asked you for specifics at the time…was I satisfactory?” he demanded, “Did I ‘get the job done’, as you so delicately put it?”
    To his surprise, Anna laughed. A light, sexy laugh that should have broken the tension, but didn’t. “Nick! You are kidding, aren’t you? If you couldn’t tell from all the—” her eyes skittered away just a second, and she swallowed furiously, “—all the fuss I made, then you obviously aren’t the all-conquering sexual love-rat everyone believes you to be.”
    “Reports of my sexual prowess have been greatly exaggerated,” he murmured dryly, but inside he found a smile, stupidly pleased at the idea of “getting the job done” and well.
    Because she’d pleased him. Per Dio , how she’d pleased him. He’d never had quite the same sublime experience since, and he’d had lovers who were world-class beauties, sexually voracious and practiced seductresses to boot.
    Looking down at Anna’s face, he saw courage and fire in every perfect contour. Her mouth was luscious yet determined and her eyes held his, not quailing, not hiding anything.
    She did want him, but she was wary. Her slender body had an almost feline quality of readiness, as if she were gathering herself to dart away from him if he made the slightest wrong move. Either that or she was poised to attack him. Even ravish him.
    But everything about her made him want to launch his own counterattack. To haul her against him and kiss her until the last sub-atomic particle of hostility in her had melted and she was eager and aroused in his arms. As eager and aroused as he was.
    Instead, he dropped onto the sofa again, taking care to observe her personal space while every fiber of his being howled at him to invade it. “Is that what you think of me? That I’m a love-rat?” He patted the seat beside him, and felt a ridiculous, almost boyish happiness when she sat too.
    He recognized his peril when close proximity surrounded him with the delicate drift of her perfume. It was very light, yet as rich as a basket of summer flowers, and it was exactly the same fragrance she’d worn in bed at Villa Rosa. It had been the only thing she’d been wearing that night and it had filled his head with madness.
    As it did now.
    “It’s a pretty crude way of putting it, but essentially…yes.” She glanced down at his thigh, and hers, almost touching, and he could tell she wanted to move, but he wasn’t quite sure whether away or closer. “According to those—” she nodded to a pile of