Nice Girls Finish Last. Natalie Anderson

mattered was tightening the knot on this tryst.

      ‘Any other requests—are you vegetarian or anything?’ he asked. Now he could feel her trembling all over, but she didn’t try to step back. He liked that about her.

      Her chin lifted, despite the hitch in her breathing, as well. ‘I like … very fresh—’ she snuck a breath ‘—food.’

      A wave of tension hit Seth, so extreme he was unable to do anything; even forcing a swallow hurt.

      The woman wanted fresh.

      He stared. There wasn’t a single freckle on her smooth skin, something totally rare in this sun-struck country. It made him think of succulent berries and rich cream and he wanted to taste every inch of what she might offer. He wanted her to offer it all.

      Her light green eyes lanced through him—suggestive and serious and summoning. She’d snatched the lead. When she’d started chattering nonstop about the team and not looking him in the eye he’d thought he was going to have to hunt hard and he’d started to, but all of a sudden she’d turned the tables and caught him neat in a heartbeat. The chase was always a fun part of a fling but he was happy to skip it this time. She’d named the time and place and he’d be there.

      All the same, he held her gaze deliberately too long—testing. The moment stretched until her mouth tightened and she swallowed. A half second later she was the one to break eye contact, lowering her lashes. Yeah, she wasn’t as filled with chutzpah as she made out. And, given her trembling and what those boys had said before about her always saying ‘no’, he knew this wasn’t her usual modus operandi, which made it even more intriguing. Yet, for whatever reason, she clearly wanted to feel in charge of their dealings. So he’d let her think she was—for now.

      Anticipation thickened the silence. He watched the slight but rapid rise and fall of her chest, the pulse madly beating at the base of her neck, the deepening red of her flush. He could almost read the secret, wanton wishes being written in the air. He was so close to pushing her back onto that desk and finishing what they’d begun outside that damn change room.

      ‘You’d better get to Dion’s office.’ All husky, she turned her head away from him. ‘He’ll wonder where you are.’

      The irony of it was he was here to see her. Hoping he could convince her to go in to bat for his boys. Only, Seth wasn’t about to ruin the prospect of a fascinating evening by bringing up business now. He couldn’t seem to care enough about it this minute, which was wrong when so many others were relying on him. But the embodiment of temptation before him was irresistible. He reversed the order of his plan—Lena, then the project.

      He stepped back to let her be the boss. Reminded himself that breathing was necessary to life. Assured himself that very soon he’d touch her again.

      ‘6:00 p.m.,’ he confirmed before any feminine doubts surfaced and she tried to cancel. He could see her wavering, not looking at him. Sure enough she shivered, her body battling to contain conflicting emotions. Desire versus uncertainty. But he wasn’t going to let her withdraw. It was too late, the chemical reaction had begun and the explosion was inevitable.

      He’d only taken a couple of steps out of sight of her doorway when he heard it. The laugh. The husky, nervous but naughty laugh. The desire to inhale that intoxicating mix almost overpowered him. It had drawn him to her in the corridor, had been echoing in his ears since. His fists clenched as he fought the impulse to turn back and tumble her to the floor. He was damn well going to have that laugh beneath him before nightfall.

      CHAPTER THREE

      LENA staggered round her desk and curled into her chair. She wanted to hide, laugh, cry. All at once. Had she just done that? Had she brazenly come on to the Seth Walker—insisting he take her on a dinner date? At home? She laughed even more helplessly than she had before. Then it turned into panic. She glanced at her watch. It was just after 5:00 p.m., which meant that she had less than an hour before she was going to … what exactly?

      She froze for the next ten minutes, struggling to believe she’d voiced her desire so bluntly. Struggling to believe she’d felt that desire to such an extreme. Then she heard them, the male voices, that low drawl, then laughter. She braced, her heart stopping for a seriously damaging twenty seconds.

      They didn’t come to see her. Didn’t even glance in as they passed by her open door. She heard Dion calling out goodbye, heard the footsteps fade. So he’d gone, the guy she’d all but offered herself on a platter to—fresh. Was he really going to come back?

      Time twisted, slowed, tormented. Her embarrassment multiplied. Why would the guy who could have any woman in the world want her? Things like this didn’t happen to Lena. The rugby guys asked her out only because she was famous for saying no, not because they meant it. She must have imagined the intensity of that whole thing. Seth was a playboy. Lena, while not an innocent in a few too many ways, was utterly one in the world of the one-night rendezvous.

      Oh, hell. She could laugh it off, right? He probably wasn’t going to show anyway. She held out her hand and checked to see if the all-over trembling she felt inside was visible. Totally was. As the seconds ticked she knew she couldn’t follow through. She’d been on another planet to think she could. She might once have been labelled a minx who tried to destroy a marriage, but she was no femme fatale. She never did this. Never thought about hot, sweaty, super-naughty sex.

      Well, hardly ever.

      Her heart thundered, splitting her body in two with its contrary desires—one half wanted to run far and fast to a safe, isolated corner, while the other half couldn’t get past that so-carnal kiss and wanted more, more, more.

      Maybe what she’d said to him earlier hadn’t been that far off the mark. Maybe being around all those nearly naked men had somehow turned her sexual thermostat on high. Maybe it hadn’t been Seth heating her so devastatingly, it had been the situation.

      That would be it.

      Except she’d been around all those seminaked rugby boys so many times before and had never had this kind of reaction to any of them. Somehow Seth Walker had slid right beneath her rigidly imposed barriers and flicked her switch on high. And it had been so long, she couldn’t seem to turn herself back off. She drummed her fingers on her tidy desk and as the clock ticked on her bravado seeped out. She’d call him and cancel, except she didn’t have his number.

      Oh, hell, she didn’t want to wait round for either a no-show or an awkward end to what had been a simple flirt for him and a lightning bolt for her. She grabbed her bag a good ten minutes before she’d told him to meet her and started down the empty corridor, a second away from sprinting.

      ‘Lena.’

      Her skin crisped as if she’d been plunged into boiling oil. She turned slowly and saw him leaning against Dion’s doorjamb. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, girlishly breathless.

      His smile broadened. ‘Waiting for you?’

      ‘I said Exit Four.’ Her heart stuttered like a first-generation machine gun. The reaction began instantly—his proximity heating her so fast she tingled all over.

      ‘Oh, that’s right,’ he drawled, eyes twinkling. ‘I forgot.’

      She didn’t think so; he was far too intelligent to forget anything like that.

      ‘Exit Four …’ He glanced at the wall and the signs that were so helpfully posted there. ‘That’s down that corridor, isn’t it?’

      Lena didn’t answer yes because, if she’d been going to Exit Four, she should have turned left five paces ago.

      ‘Lucky we bumped into each other here, isn’t it, otherwise you might have been waiting for ages at Exit Four and thought I’d stood you up. But I’d never do that.’

      He spoke softly, but she felt the light bite he intended. He knew she’d been going to bottle it and be the one to stand him up.

      She