Keeping Her Up All Night. Anna Cleary

I’m sorry to have stirred you up, Amber. I can see you’re a woman of strong passions. I think maybe you are a bit tired. People get overwrought.’ He drew his brows together and looked narrowly at her. ‘Amber? Are you sure that’s your name?’

       ‘What?’

      ‘I think it should be Indigo. Or Lavender. Your oldies must have been drunk.’ Missing her unamused glare, he shrugged. ‘Never mind. I accept your apology. How about a drink?’

      ‘I’m not apologising.’ Her voice trembled as she lost the final vestiges of control and reasonable behaviour. ‘And I don’t want a drink. Just look what you’ve done to Jean’s lovely home. You have no right to touch her precious piano. You’re a—a vandal. I don’t want to know you, or see you, or hear any more of your awful, awful noise.’

      He studied her with a solemn, meditative gaze. But she knew, damn him, it was an act. Underneath he was dying to laugh. At her.

      ‘You’re a bit wired up.’

      He advanced further, so that his chest was a mere five centimetres from her breasts. She inhaled the clean, male scent of him and sensed something else in him besides laughter. A high-voltage buzz of electricity that charged her own nerves with adrenaline.

      ‘You should calm down.’

      His sensual gaze touched her everywhere, caressed her hair, her throat, lingered on her mouth.

      ‘I think I know a way I can help you to relax.’

      ‘Oh.’ Fury must have overheated her brain, because she lifted Jean’s sonata and whacked him across the face with it.

      Danger flashed in his eyes like a lightning strike. She watched, aghast, as a thin red line appeared where the rolled up edge of the paper had struck his cheekbone.

       How could she have?

      The universe shuddered to a stop. There was a moment when they both stood paralysed. Then in a quick, shocking movement he caught hold of her arms.

      ‘You need to learn some control,’ he said softly, steel in his voice, his eyes.

      Her heart took a violent plunge as his hands burned her upper arms. The breath constricted in her throat.

      ‘Let go of me,’ she said, trying to sound calm while her thunderous heartbeat slammed into her ribs. She blustered the first thing that came into her head. ‘Don’t … don’t you even think of trying to kiss me.’

      His brows swept up in surprise, then his rainwater eyes sparkled like diamonds. As if she’d said something funny.

      His lashes flickered half the way down. ‘Are you sure you really mean that, Amber?’

      Knowing her Freudian slip was flashing a bright neon, while her traitorous lips still tingled with … Well, for goodness’ sake his lips were the most ravishing pair she’d encountered at close range for months. Her chaste, unkissed mouth was making a purely kneejerk and understandable chemical response.

      Then, in an avalanche of bodily betrayal, her nipples joined in. She could feel a definite weakening arousal in them of a warming kind and wouldn’t you know it? More arousal, all the way south.

      At the exact instant those sensations registered with her a high-voltage, purely sexual flare lit Guy Wilder’s eyes.

      ‘Take your hands off me.’ His grip slackened at once and she twisted away. ‘Thank you.’ Rubbing an arm, she hissed, ‘There may be women who buckle at the knees when they meet you, Guy Wilder, but I can assure you I’m not one of them.’

      The heat intensified in his gleaming gaze. He gave a knowing, sexy laugh. ‘If you say so.’ He crossed to the foyer in a couple of long strides and held the door wide. ‘You’d better run home, little girl, and cool down. The wicked, wicked man might tempt you into doing something you enjoy.’

      She brushed past him, racking her brains for a parting gibe. Then, with an insolent smile, she pointed to the angry patch on his cheek. ‘Better put something on that.’

      He touched the wound with his fingers. A smile curled the edges of his mouth as he retorted softly, ‘Be seeing you, sweetheart.’

      The door clicked to behind her.

      Guy stood like a man who’d just been slammed somewhere strange by a tornado. It took some time for his aggravated pulse to ease. The fiery little exchange had stirred him in more ways than one.

      He whistled. Whew. What a spitfire.

      Nothing like a tempestuous woman to whip up a man’s blood. His creative spirit was zinging. The way she held herself with that straight, proud back. If only he could get her in front of a camera.

      He groaned, thinking of the way she’d glided across the room with that lithe, graceful walk. He felt aroused and at the same time amazingly energised, his whole being like an electric rod.

      His blood quickened. How long since he’d felt this way?

      God, it felt great.

      Safe inside her flat, Amber buried her face in her pillow, her mind churning with images of his handsome, taunting face. The things he’d said. The things she’d said.

      Run home, little girl. The sheer arrogance of that. She clenched her teeth and tried to think of a hands-off way to murder the beast. Though with what she’d done so far, maybe hands-on would be more fitting. Why had she done such a terrible thing?

      She should be wrung with shame, but to be honest she couldn’t even feel very sorry. What was wrong with her? To have actually used violence like some wild virago was completely out of character for her. No one who knew her would believe Amber O’Neill, meek and mild as honeydew, could be capable of behaving with such a lack of restraint.

      Well, no one now.

      She’d once disgraced herself by pouring a glass of beer over Miguel da Vargas’s handsome, lying head, but that was ancient history. Blood under the bridge. And he’d deserved it. This was all about sleep. If she didn’t get some soon she’d have to be locked up to keep the public safe.

      She punched her pillow, tossed and turned, but all to no avail. It was no use. She’d acted like a fool and she knew it. What had happened to her resolve to stay calm in a conflict situation? He’d been the one who’d stayed cool, while she …

      She writhed to think of how easily he’d wiped the floor with her. Run home, little girl.

      There had to be a way of salvaging her feminine honour.

      Suddenly she froze on her bed of nails. She could hear him. He was in there, singing to himself like a man without a care in the world. Or … The thought stung through her agony. A man gloating.

      Where was her feminine spirit? Was she just to lie down and take this?

      She scrambled off the bed and took a minute or two to whip on a sexy push-up bra and some shoes with heels. She considered changing the rather deep-cut top, then discarded that idea. She didn’t want him to think she’d gone to any trouble.

      She smoothed down her skirt, ran a brush through her long hair. A little strategic eyeliner, a spray of perfume. Flicked the puff from her compact over her nose. Then, more presentable this time, more together, more herself—she took a fortifying swig of Vee juice from the fridge, and sashayed to his door for a second time.

      Striding up to the bell, she gave it one imperative ring.