Lessons in Rule-Breaking (9 page)

Was she turning him down?

The thought rattled through him like a cold wind. A woman hadn’t rejected him like that in a very long time and it didn’t feel good.

‘Jess?’

She turned back to look at him, her expression confused, but wary, and he instinctively leant forward and cupped the side of her jaw with one hand, his thumb catching against the soft fullness of her bottom lip.

He wanted to kiss her. So badly.

It was an undeniable instinct, driven by a mixture of need and curiosity and a determination to not
allow
her to reject him, and frustration twisted in his gut when he realised she was fighting him and pulling away.

Releasing his grip on her, he reluctantly drew back. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, holding up an open-palmed hand.

She opened her mouth, as if to respond, then shook her head hard, her long bob of hair swinging round her face, before reaching for the handle to open the door.

He watched her scramble out of the car, banging her arm on the door in her rush to get away from him.

He slumped back in the chair, staring out into the darkness, hot with anger at himself. What the hell was he thinking, coming on to her like that after what she’d just told him? God, how inappropriate. He needed to straighten himself out—fast. Getting close to Jess was going to take more than chucking a few artless, throwaway platitudes her way before steaming in full force.

He got out of the car and followed her into the villa, a little way behind to give her the space she obviously needed. She turned before she got to the staircase and gave him a strained smile.

‘See you tomorrow.’ It was a statement, not a question and he knew for sure there would be no invitation to visit her room that night. Perhaps it was for the best considering how ineptly he seemed to be acting around her.

The best. The best,
he chanted inside his head in an attempt to convince himself of it.

‘Goodnight, Jess, sleep well,’ he called after her, knowing full well a good night’s sleep was the last thing
he’d
be getting.

FIVE

Jess couldn’t sleep.
Again.

Her body hummed with unsettling sensations after spending the most sexually charged day of her life with the most disquieting man in the world—who she was pretty sure would have kissed her in the car if she hadn’t freaked out and run away from him like that. The trouble with being around Xander was that he was such a tactile person she wasn’t sure whether she’d read his intentions all wrong. Maybe he meant nothing by it.

The memory of the humiliating
jumper incident
in the restaurant made her whole body flush hot with embarrassment. Xander had been so cool to whip off his own shirt like that to protect her modesty and then she’d been cold and weird with him in the car afterwards.

He must think she was a total loon.

And what the hell had possessed her to tell him about her bulimia? It felt now as if she’d opened up the most delicate part of herself and there was a cold draught blowing in, chilling her to the bone.

Not that he hadn’t been sensitive about it. In fact, he’d been lovely about that, too, which only made her want him more.

Because she
did
want him.

More than she’d wanted anyone in her entire life.

And the idea terrified her.

She knew deep in her bones it would be a disaster for her to get emotionally involved with him. He was too wild for her, too... What was the phrase?
Too hot to handle.

She’d get badly burned; she knew it.

The most sensible thing to do would be to keep it strictly business for the rest of her time here in case she made even more of a fool of herself. But she didn’t
want
to be sensible. Not this time.

Trouble was, she had a feeling her stand-offishness was all that separated her from pretty much every other woman he came into contact with and she’d be a fool to squander the advantage of his remarkable interest in her by making herself too available.

All she had to do was keep things in perspective.

Yeah, good luck with that, Jess.

Oh, goodness, this assignment was hard work.

She sighed and rolled over in bed, trying to quell the deep, vigorous throbbing between her legs at the thought of him sleeping just along the corridor.

Impossible.

Perhaps she should go and make herself a milky drink or something, in the hope it would relax her enough to let her sleep.

Rubbing a hand over her tired eyes, she sat up, shuffling to the side of her bed, only managing to increase the ache between her thighs with the friction of the movement.

Never in all her life had she felt so wildly out of control and it scared the hell out of her.

Leaving her room quietly, so as not to disturb Xander, she tiptoed downstairs to the kitchen, leaving off the light in case anyone should be alerted to her presence. She felt furtive and naughty for being there, as if she were trespassing on someone else’s property, even though she was a guest in the house.

As she pulled open the fridge door to find the milk her eye was drawn to a bowl of what looked like tiramisu, sitting there innocently in the fridge.

A horrible greedy urge to take it and eat the entire bowlful gripped her around the throat.

The stress of hanging out with Xander Heaton was severely testing her rather shaky self-control.

Her hands shook and her mouth filled with saliva as she stared at the delicious-looking pudding. A tremendously powerful urge to reach forward and take it gripped her, but she knew from experience if she so much as let herself take a mouthful she’d end up stuffing the whole thing into her mouth like some crazed maniac and she really couldn’t let that happen. She’d fought so valiantly over the years against the horrible overwhelming feelings of shame and self-loathing her eating disorder prompted, she couldn’t let herself get pulled into that vicious cycle of binge and purge again. She’d made a promise to herself not to allow extreme comfort eating to ruin her life any more than it already had.

It would not beat her.

With a determination that she had to pull up from the very depths of her psyche, she swung the fridge door shut and walked away on shaky legs, back to her bedroom and safety.

* * *

The next morning Jess got up early and took herself off for a drive around the lake.

She needed a breather from being around Xander in order to mentally get herself in a place where she could handle the developing situation without freaking out again.

A bit of peace and calm and normality was just the ticket.

Stopping off in a few of the charming towns along the way, she took photos and made notes for the travel piece she needed to write. Each place was very different from the last—with its own unique atmosphere and character—all bordering the amazingly clear water of Lake Garda. She could totally see why the place lured so many visitors to its shores each year.

A tantalising window display in one of the women’s clothes shops drew her in and she found herself trying on and buying a couple of reasonably priced tops—one white and one in a vibrant pillar-box red—a stylish, black fishtail skirt that fell to just above her knee and a couple of midlength-sleeved summer dresses. All the clothes were more fitted and flamboyant than the things she’d usually wear, but some strange compulsion made her hand over her credit card and buy them anyway. She justified the expense by telling herself she needed some more clothes since it looked as if she was staying longer and it wouldn’t be professional to keep turning up in the same sad outfit every day.

After gathering as much information as she needed, she finally made her way back to the villa, feeling drowsy now in the afternoon heat.

As she pulled the car onto the driveway she could see Xander in the distance, a mug of coffee in one hand and a paintbrush in the other, standing in front of an easel set up on the lawn overlooking the lake. He must have heard the car’s engine because he turned round to look her way, dropped his paintbrush onto the grass next to a pallet of paints and strode towards her, waving.

‘Hey, Jess, there you are.’

He stumbled as he walked towards her, spilling coffee down his trousers.

Jess shot him a grin, glad for the distraction from the anxiety about facing him again after the debacle of the night before.

He raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘What’s so funny?’ he said, brushing at the stain with his fingers.

She shrugged, nerves making her jittery. ‘It’s nice to see you making mistakes, too. It just proves even the most self-possessed people mess up. I like that—it makes me feel better about myself. If you can spill coffee all over your crotch then it’s okay for me to rip my clothes off in a restaurant. Or something.’

He gave her a puzzled look. ‘You’re a very strange woman, you know that?’

She snorted. ‘Actually I do. It’s not a new observation.’

He smiled and her blood heated. There was something in his gaze she hadn’t seen before. Something that made her insides flip.

‘Where have you been today?’

‘I went for a drive around the lake. I’m writing a travel piece too while I’m here so I wanted to get a feel of the place.’

‘Man, they keep you busy there, don’t they?’

She shrugged. ‘I like to keep busy.’

He nodded but didn’t say anything, his gaze flicking down to her mouth. She tensed under his scrutiny. He seemed to move closer to her, just a fraction, as if he were thinking about going in for a kiss and she froze with anxiety, not at all sure what to do with herself. Her lips tingled at the thought of his mouth, hot and hard against hers.

‘I’m a p-professional,’ she stuttered in panic and his gaze flicked back to meet hers, amusement clear in his eyes.

‘A professional what?’ His expression was full of barely contained laugher.

Jess straightened her T-shirt. Smoothed down her hair. ‘Here in a professional capacity, I mean, so please don’t feel you have to, you know, look after me or anything.’

He nodded a couple of times, still looking at her as if she was the funniest thing he’d ever encountered. ‘What if I like looking after you?’ His eyes suddenly lit with an idea before she could respond. ‘Hey, why don’t we bring a picnic down to the cove later? It should be warm enough and if we’re lucky we might get a pretty amazing sunset,’ he said, cocking his head while he waited for her to agree.

It sounded much too romantic an idea for her liking, but she couldn’t spend the next couple of days hiding from him as she had today. She still hadn’t got everything she needed in order to write the column and it would be a good opportunity to ask him some more questions while he was relaxed and happy in her company. ‘Yeah, sure, that sounds like fun,’ she said, not giving her cowardly alter ego a chance to interfere.

‘Great. I’ll get Rosa to make a hamper up for us. Shall we say eight o’clock again?’

She nodded dumbly. ‘Yes. Eight.’

‘Okay, then.’ He was looking at her so intensely she wondered whether there was something wrong with her face.

‘Listen,’ he said, finally breaking the silence, ‘I hope you didn’t think I was being insensitive last night, after we’d talked about your...eating issues.’

He looked genuinely concerned and she felt a rush of affection for him.

‘Nah, don’t worry about it. I think we were both a bit freaked by what happened in the restaurant. I don’t suppose it’s often you have to strip off to save your date from dying of embarrassment.’

He laughed. ‘As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I don’t have a problem with stripping off.’

Jess felt the inevitable warmth creep up her neck at the thought of his naked, toned torso in such close proximity to her. ‘Yeah, well, you don’t need to rein that in on my account,’ she said, flashing him what she hoped would come across as an affable smile. She wanted to show him she did still have
some
vestige of control in the flirty-banter stakes.

He raised a dark eyebrow and tipped his head in appreciation. ‘Noted,’ he said, before turning away and walking back to his easel.

* * *

Jess paced the floor of the hall, waiting for Xander to turn up and collect her for their picnic tea.

She’d put the pillar-box-red top and pencil skirt on for tonight, then taken the whole ensemble off again. Then a minute later put it back on, telling herself it was a positive step in the right direction to push herself out of her comfort zone.

To
unstuff
herself.

But then again, she needed every ounce of confidence tonight if she was going to get through the evening with her pride intact.

She’d been about to take it off again when she’d caught sight of her wild-eyed reflection in the mirror.

She was turning into a complete loony.

Whatever was happening between her and Xander was making her lose her mind. She was ninety per cent sure it wasn’t all in her head. Okay, maybe eighty, but he’d definitely kicked his flirting up a notch recently.

What the hell was going on? She could have sworn he would have kissed her last night if she hadn’t broken the atmosphere by flapping about like a headless chicken. Or was that just a figure of her overactive imagination? In the past she’d been prone to reading more into a situation than was actually there, and it had made her wary about taking anything for granted when it came to men and relationships.

Another thing she hated—making a fool of herself.

Not that she hadn’t already managed that in the couple of days she’d been here.

When he finally turned up at five past eight, looking, oh, so divinely edible, she was so nervous the first thing she said was, ‘You’re late. Again.’

Despite her snippy tone, he gave her an amused grin. ‘Are you going to spank me with your ruler, Headmistress? Because I’ll take whatever punishment you choose to dish out.’

She took a shaky step back away from him, but kept her gaze locked with his. ‘Don’t be so facetious,’ she murmured, her body tense with the sudden desire to throw herself at him and consequences be damned.

He took a step towards her, closing the gap between them. ‘Ooh, yeah, keep using those long words on me, too. I like that.’

She slapped him gently on the arm. ‘You’re incorrigible.’

He slapped her back, a seductive eyebrow quirked.

Narrowing her eyes in jest, she did it again, feeling the rock-hard muscle of his triceps vibrate under her touch.

Before she could react he wrapped his hand round hers and, trapping it there against him, walked her backwards until her back hit the wall. The heat from his body radiated over her skin, sending zingy electric currents through her limbs.

‘This is just like being back in the school playground,’ she barely managed to struggle out. Her tongue felt like a lead weight in her mouth and her lips were tight with tension.

He moved his body closer to her and a flood of longing flashed through her. ‘Did you like playing kiss chase at school?’ he murmured, dipping his head so he could look directly into her eyes. His pupils looked huge against the bright aqua of his irises.

‘Of course,’ she said, her voice husky and broken. ‘And I’m guessing you were always the first kid to suggest playing it?’ Staring defiantly back, she attempted to hold her nerve, determined not to be the one to look away first. He was teasing her, trying to trip her up and get her to admit just how much of an effect he had on her. He wasn’t going to win, though; she wouldn’t let him.

He shifted even closer, bringing with him a waft of his fresh citrus scent.

It was no good—she just wasn’t as good at this game as he was. She closed her eyes as an onslaught of lust nearly brought her to her knees.

‘Somebody has to take control,’ he said quietly.

She glanced up at him, straight into those unfathomable eyes. ‘I’d have fought you for it,’ she practically whispered, her throat tight with tension.

He smiled in a way that made her whole body ache with longing.

His hand was still trapping hers against his body and she could feel the faint pulse in his fingertips. Or was that her own pulse that seemed to have taken her over? She throbbed to the beat as it concentrated deep in her pelvis. She was so turned on she felt faintly queasy.