Free The Price of Fame by Anne Oliver

away.’ His voice deepened, his eyes changed. Tempted. ‘You asked about me around the resort and came to tell me you wanted to continue what we started for a few more days.’
    ‘No … Nic … I …’
need to think
. Except she couldn’t remember what about when he was looking at her that way.He closed the gap between them. She could smell the sharpness of salt water on his hot masculine skin. ‘No …’
    The breeze had strengthened and his hair blew around his face as he said, ‘You could clear everything up if you prove you’re actually working on something here and not just lurking.’
    ‘I wasn’t lurking, I was—’
    ‘Hoping desperately that I’d come out and find you,’ he murmured silkily. She heard his words but it was their smooth, deep cadence that captured her. She remembered how it had sounded when he’d laid her down on the bed and told her what he was going to do to her, and how.
    He took her hat off, tossed it on the table. His hands moulded firmly around her shoulders and he pulled her closer, his lips a warm whisper away from hers. She swayed towards them, couldn’t wait to feel them on hers. When he pulled the pad out of her loosening grasp and laid it on the table beside her, she didn’t attempt to stop him.
    ‘Because if
I
found
you
,’ he continued, ‘you’d not be giving in first.’ He tightened his hold, eyes dancing. ‘And that’s okay. I don’t mind letting you win. This time.’
    Before she could object to that—did she even care?—his mouth swooped on hers. Smoothly, expertly, confident that she couldn’t resist.
    Instant addiction. She felt herself being swept up in the tastes and sensations as a stiff breeze swept across her sweat-damp skin and rustled the palm fronds. Unable to stop herself, she slid her hands upwards over sun-warmed skin exploring all the different textures while his mouth worked magic on hers.
    But if he was just proving a point and he’d meant it to be light and easy, the emotions rushing through her were anything but. Distant alarm bells rang a warning. She wasn’t ready for these feelings and this thing with Nic would only end badly for her. She’d stop … any moment now …
    The muscles in her legs turned lax, her arms coiled around his neck and she hung on, her toes curling inside her sandals.
    Nic lifted his lips a fraction. ‘I hate to interrupt this, but your work …’
    ‘Work?’ she murmured, craning her neck to recapture his lips.
    He licked her bottom lip with a lazy stroke of his tongue. ‘Whatever you were doing. When I interrupted you. Remember that private thing you didn’t want me to see?’
    She pulled back and swivelled her head to see her precious designs scattering like giant butterflies across the garden. ‘Oh, no!’ Yanking out of his arms, she stumbled across the lawn and into bushes, grabbing what she could. ‘I’ve got them,’ she yelled in case he followed. ‘Do
not
look …’
    But when she turned around with the crumpled pages in her hands, he was regarding her with telling interest. He didn’t say a word but a smile played around his lips.
    ‘I’m leaving now,’ she told him, her face burning. Stuffing her papers and everything she could lay her hands on into her holdall, she grabbed her hat and backed towards the gate. ‘Stay away from me. I mean it,’ she said through clenched teeth when he only kept smiling that know-all smile. ‘You’re bad for me.’
    She turned and fled, knowing he was watching. Bad for her peace of mind. Bad for her will power. Bad distraction.
    Bad, bad, bad.
    Still grinning, Nic watched her go. He waited until she’d disappeared past the gate, then retrieved a loose sheet thathad snagged under the table. He couldn’t
not
look, now, could he? Smoothing out the page, he stared at the erotic image.
    Flowers, hmm? His grin broadened. But he looked closer. This was a skilled artist’s work. She’d added notes on the construction, fabric details, colour