He hooked a stool towards him with his foot and sat down on the other side of the counter from her. ‘You heard.’
‘I may have heard, but it doesn’t make sense.’
‘No?’ He shrugged and sipped his coffee. ‘I thought if I removed the thorn from your flesh of me not appearing to return your physical interest, you might feel better about things. You might even go away.’
Maggie stared at him as he put his mug down. Then she stood up on a rung of her stool and slapped his face.
His coffee-mug overturned as he moved abruptly and a brown puddle stretched between them. Then the mug rolled off the counter in slow motion and smashed on the floor. It was the only sound although the thwack of her palm connecting with his cheekbone seemed to linger on the air.
There was something utterly terrifying in the way his narrowed grey gaze captured hers as she sank back onto the stool; it was still and menacing and full of unconcealed contempt. It was also as impossible to tear her gaze away as it had been the day they’d first laid eyes on each other, until he moved again and snaked out a hand to capture her wrist.
Maggie panicked then. She tore her wrist away and slipped off the stool all set to run away as fast as she could. Two things impeded her: she slipped on the wet floor and yelped in pain. By the time she’d righted herself and realized she’d got a sliver of china in her foot, he’d come round the breakfast bar, grabbed her by the waist and lifted her into his arms.
Forgetting everything but the awful insult she’d received, she launched into speech. ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ she said, her green eyes blazing. ‘Yes, OK, it has been a thorn in my flesh! I went from hating and despising you to liking you and—and—feeling as flat as a tack because all I meant to you was a bunch of flowers, obviously, but there’s a singular difference between what you’re implying and the facts of the matter— what are you doing?’
He strode over to a leather couch and sat down with her in his lap. ‘This.’
Maggie struggled to free herself, but he resisted with ease. ‘Just keep still, Maggie,’ he advised. ‘You can’t go anywhere with a splinter in your foot and I don’t know if you make a habit of slapping men—’
‘I don’t!’ she protested fiercely
‘That explains it, then. You failed to realize it’s just asking for some comeuppance.’ He released her waist and put one arm around her shoulders.
‘Come whatance…?’ she said with a lot less certainty.
His lips twisted into a wry smile as he looked down into her eyes. ‘This, Miss Trent—much pleasanter actually.’ He bent his head and teased her lips apart.
It had occurred to Maggie that he was going to kiss her. What hadn’t occurred to her was that through her rage and disappointment she could feel any spark of physical attraction, so her confusion was boundless on discovering herself pitched forward into a hothouse of sensual awareness; a sudden, wide open appreciation of Jack McKinnon, the feel of him, the taste of him, the sheer pleasure of him.
This can’t be happening to me, she thought, but she was unable to resist the lovely sensations he was arousing in her as he kissed her lips, then her neck and throat, and it was all so warm and close and— most curiously—entirely appropriate.
So appropriate, she didn’t protest when he slipped his hand beneath her top and cupped her breasts in their flimsy layer of silk and lace.
She even voiced her approval. ‘Mmm… mmm.’
‘Nice?’ he murmured.
‘Very.’
‘How about this?’ He circled her waist with his arm and started to kiss her deeply.
She clung to him and moved against him, loving the hard strength of his body against hers and becoming extremely aroused, so much so, she doubted her ability to withstand any kind of closure between them other than the final one between a man and a woman.
He was the one who brought them back to earth, slowly, until she was lying in his arms, her eyes dark, her mouth red, her hair gorgeously mussed and her breathing highly erratic.
She blinked several times, her eyes were very green and quite bewildered. ‘Where did that come from?’