A Spanish Awakening. KIM LAWRENCE

stood waiting for his breathing to return to something approximating normal and watched her, fascinated to see denial this close up. Megan was addressing her remarks to some point over his left shoulder and her attractive contralto voice had an audible edge of hysteria. The open neck of her blouse didn’t quite hide the pulse that beat at the base of her throat.

      Struggling to control the hunger rampaging through his body, he avoided looking at her mouth, deciding it would not help the painful issue of his arousal, which remained painfully obvious—also painful!

      Kissing in public places had some definite disadvantages.

      You’ve met a lot of good-looking men, Megan, she told herself. You can look at him and not turn into a gibbering idiot. You do not worship this man from afar. He cannot injure you with an unfair accusation and harsh word. He has no power at all over you any more because he’s just a good-looking man you used to slightly know because he went to school with your brother.

      Just a man who made it a struggle to breathe when she looked at him and all that scalp-tingling stuff. Her glance swept downwards as she rubbed her forearms to dispel the goose bumps that in the heat of the terminal building had broken out over her body like a rash.

      Face it, Megan, a man like Emilio is never going to be just a man, not with a mouth like that. But that didn’t mean she had to humiliate herself by drooling.

      ‘I know, I heard you.’

      Somewhere above the hum of noise and the pounding of her heart as it struggled to batter its way through her ribcage, Megan was conscious of a voice, a vaguely familiar voice, calling Emilio’s name.

      If he heard it he gave no sign, he just continued to stare silently down at her with an expression on his face that she struggled to interpret.

      ‘You just kissed me.’

      He angled a dark brow. ‘I was beginning to think you hadn’t noticed.’

      ‘I’m ignoring it.’ Or not dealing with it? ‘Like I ignore troublesome, irritating bugs.’

      ‘So you do not like me?’

      The possibility did not appear to have dented his armourplated confidence, she thought, struggling to recover her shredded composure, or at least close her mouth—it was so not a good look.

      Relax, she told herself.

      It was not like or anything similarly tepid that Emilio felt as his eyes moved across the soft contours of her upturned features. Soft was the right word, he decided, allowing his eyes to briefly drop as far as her visibly heaving bosom before returning to her face, soft and feminine.

      The colour of her eyes had always fascinated him, a deep shade of topaz, though at this moment only a rim of that remarkable colour remained around her dilated pupils. Her skin was incredible. Under the spreading dark stain on her smooth cheeks it was milk-pale and totally flawless. Did that milky pallor extend all over?

      He watched the muscles in her pale throat contract as she blinked and gave her glossy head a tiny shake and lifted her chin to a defiant angle before opening her eyes. Emilio, identifying the ‘don’t mess with me’ look on her face, felt a buzz in his blood that had been absent for a long time as he silently accepted the challenge.

      He would dearly love to mess with her.

      Megan was familiar with powerful men and their generally fragile egos. Experience had taught her that great men’s egos responded well to a well-chosen word. She had averted many a potential meltdown with a placatory word, a compliment.

      This was a situation she was more than capable of coping with, which begged the question—why wasn’t she? Why was she standing there like an idiot?

      Powerful, successful men liked to be told they were wonderful as well as the next person—possibly more, because they took it as their due.

      She took a deep breath that eased the tightness in her aching chest, opened her mouth and heard herself say, ‘No. No, I don’t like you at all.’ Not the sop to his ego she had intended.

      ‘You do not know me, although you think you do.’

      Megan’s edginess materialised as hostility as she tilted her chin. ‘Very profound, but actually I don’t want to know you,’ she blurted childishly. ‘And if you kiss me again I will—’

      Emilio arched a questioning brow and smiled down into her upturned face. ‘You will what?’ he enquired with interest.

      Megan inhaled and thought, Good question. ‘Just don’t!’

      Not a threat likely to make him gibber in fear, but it was preferable to the more candid response of, Kiss you back!

      She watched his eyes glitter in response to the warning, not with anger, not with amusement, but with something else she could not put a name to. Megan struggled to keep her eyes on his face as the nameless something made her stomach dissolve into a liquid, molten mush.

      ‘That came from the heart.’

      Aware that the organ in question was trying to batter its way through her ribs, she glared at him.

      Megan heard his name again and began to turn her head towards the sound, but a long brown finger laid against the curve of her jaw prevented her.

      The unexpected contact sent a shudder through her body and dragged a shocked breath from her lungs.

      She wanted to slap his hand away.

      She wanted to tell him she had no desire to know him.

      She wanted to tell him to stop looking at her like that.

      ‘Stop looking—’

      As his mouth covered her own for a second time the strength left Megan’s body in one whoosh. If one hand had not curled like a supportive steel band around her ribcage, dragging her body up against his iron-hard thighs, she would have slid to the ground.

      When he released her she was breathing hard as she blinked up at him. ‘I told you not to do that.’

      ‘What can I say? It’s the challenge and also your mouth. It was made for kissing.’

      Taking the phone from her grasp, Emilio lifted it to his ear and, still holding her eyes, spoke into the mouthpiece.

      ‘Rios here.’

      Megan slanted an angry glare at his face and held out her hand.

      ‘Ah, Charles. Yes, she is here with me now,’ Emilio said, ignoring her silent demand, and continued to speak, responding to what her father was saying, his voice oozing almost as much insincerity as his mocking gaze.

      ‘No, don’t worry, I will take care of her. No need, it is not a problem, Charles.’ A taunting grin in place on his lean face, Emilio turned to evade the hand that tried to snatch the phone from him. He waved an admonishing finger at her face and directed a wolfish smile at her indignant face as he raised his voice and said, ‘It is a total pleasure and no trouble at all. Yes, and Megan sends her love.’

      Love was not the emotion stamped on Megan’s face when she attracted the attention of several people within earshot as she yelled, ‘No, I don’t!’

      Finally able to grab the phone, Megan snatched it from his hand and lifted it to her own ear, struggling to regain some semblance of control. ‘Dad?’ she said. ‘I don’t need to bother Mr Rios, I’m—I’m … He’s gone,’ she said, directing an accusing look up at Emilio’s dark face.

      ‘Your father is a busy man.’

      ‘My father is—’ Megan bit back the unflattering reading of her father’s character and glared up at Emilio.

      ‘He can relax now he knows you have someone to look after you.’

      ‘I don’t need anyone to look after me, and my father knows it. He just wants me to be nice to you because you have contacts that he …’ Realising belatedly