Free Far From Perfect by Portia Da Costa Page A

him.
    “And yet you responded to me when I kissed you.”
    His voice remained cool even if inside, his tumultuous emotions confused and scalded him. Anguish, guilt, long-standing frustrations, all careened around the central, most recent memory, the feel of Anna’s velvet-soft lips parting beneath his. The imagined sensation tore at him, and the sexual hunger that had temporarily subsided reasserted itself with gut-twisting intensity.
    How dare she go on and on, claiming to care for some insipid boyfriend when she’d participated so uninhibitedly in that kiss? Even now, though there was anger in her eyes, his sexual radar told him she was completely attuned to the incredible chemistry between them.
    “You took me by surprise,” she replied, the blush of rosy pink across her cheeks undermining her protest. She was holding her poise, just about, but beneath the surface she was whirling in the same maelstrom he was. Anger, confusion, the baggage of the past, the issues of the present…but most of all desire, a force of life that denied all negatives.
    Stop lying! Stop avoiding the issue!
    He didn’t know whether it was her he was accusing, or himself. He only knew he wanted her to admit that she wanted more than nonentities like Johnson could ever give her. Anna was volcanic and passionate— Dio , how he knew that!—and she needed a passionate man with hot red blood in his veins to satisfy her and keep her happy. Granted, he couldn’t offer her long-term prospects, the true marriage for both love and sexual compatibility that she really needed. But a brief affair between them, loaded with intense sex and relaxed good times, might exorcise both their respective demons and allow Anna to seek the right long-term relationship eventually.
    For her own welfare, he had to break up this ridiculous half-hearted attachment she claimed to have for Martin Johnson, and the sooner he did it, the better.
     
    Why don’t you speak?
    The tension was unbearable. Every drip of the tap, every tick of the clock, every faint traffic sound from the unsleeping metropolis outside seemed to accuse her of being a liar. As did Nick’s intense, unwavering blue stare.
    What was going on behind those incredible eyes? Why didn’t he just accuse her of avoiding the truth? Because heaven knew she was avoiding it more desperately than she’d ever avoided anything in her life. She’d responded to Nick because he was still the man she most desired above all men, still the man she should desire least for the sake of the safety of her heart.
    He’s not for you. He never will be , she told herself stringently. Your body is just stupid and uncontrollable, and it won’t listen to reason. You’re just letting yourself be beguiled by a beautiful face and the physique of a classical god.
    “I took you by surprise? Oh, I think not, Anna.”
    His eyes flicked from her face to the way she was fidgeting first with her teacup, then with the tablecloth, then with the sugar tongs. She stilled her hands, realizing she was giving everything away to him so easily.
    “You were ready for that kiss,” he persisted, a subtle note of triumph coloring his voice. “You were anticipating it. It was exactly what you wanted.”
    “Don’t be ludicrous.”
    Her heart was fluttering. She could feel an arc of high tension building in the air between them. Fighting to hold on to her purpose, she kept her voice steady. “And you’re just trying to muddy the issue now too. To distract me with all this BS about kisses, because you know you’ve done something reprehensible and you’re trying to bamboozle me into going along with what you want.”
    She expected him to protest, to claim again that he was only acting in Carlo’s interest. Placing her hands on the table, she made to stand, push back her chair and get away from him.
    But before she could, he’d leant across the table and put both his bigger, stronger hands over hers, pinning her in place.
    “The kiss is an