Undone by His Touch. Annie West
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His nostrils flared as he dragged in a breath that pumped his whole torso. ‘Then what, pray tell, does it look like?’ Cynicism skeined through his words like silk.
The venom, the strength of his anger, was a vibrant, living force, pulsing from him in waves. Instinctively Chloe stepped back, or tried to. His thighs, iron-hard and unmoveable, trapped her. Something hot twisted low in her belly.
‘Come on, Chloe,’ he taunted. ‘I deserve to know.’
Her mouth flattened at his baiting tone, even as she realised his fury stemmed from issues that had nothing to do with her. That he was still coming to grips with the legacy of the accident that had blinded him.
‘I didn’t say it’s beautiful.’
‘Ah, at last, something like the truth!’
Her hands fisted as she stared down into his grim face. ‘But it’s not as bad as you think. It gives you … character.’
No way could she be frank enough to add that the way it followed the natural line of his cheek complemented his strong features. Or that she’d come to appreciate the asymmetrical cast of his face that saved it from being too dauntingly perfect.
It made him look dangerous and sexy and far too intriguing.
‘Character!’ A jeering laugh burst from his lips. ‘That’s a good one.’
‘It’s true.’ The fire inside, the heat of unwanted arousal, twisted and morphed into a dangerous mix of distress and anger.
He shook his head, his hands clamping on his thighs as if to restrain himself from pushing her aside and shooting to his feet.
‘I do not need your sympathy.’ Each glacial word dropped with the pinpoint accuracy of a precision bomb, designed with lethal intent.
A shiver sped up Chloe’s spine and her skin iced. She hunched her shoulders.
‘No, but you need to stop feeling so sorry for yourself.’
The words burst into echoing silence.
The razor clattered, unheeded, into the sink and Chloe found herself standing, arms akimbo, staring furiously down into eyes that darkened to ebony. A pulse jumped at his temple and the air throbbed with a surge of dangerous power.
Silence stretched till her nerves were taut with expectation. She couldn’t believe she’d answered back that way. He was her boss. The man who paid her wages.
Yet she cared about him. Cared enough, it seemed, to risk the sack to tell him the truth.
The unnerving realisation froze her while the ramifications played out in her mind.
Abruptly he raised his hand, fumbling in front of him till long fingers touched her hip. She told herself she imagined the imprint burning through her skirt. But she didn’t imagine the burst of heat when his fingers found hers, locking them hard and tight in his hold.
He yanked her hand to his face, to the point beside his eye where the scar ended.
A tremor hit her as he pressed her finger on the damaged flesh so she felt the ridge of healed tissue. But her overwhelming impression was of heat and excitement—an illicit thrill that skirled in her abdomen, clenching muscles.
Slowly, oh so slowly, he dragged her hand down, her fingers to the scar, her hand dwarfed by his.
Through the shaving cream, centimetre by centimetre the skin-to-skin contact continued. It was a punishment, a challenge, yet to Chloe it had the force of a caress. Potent, provocative, drawing out hidden longings and exposing them, raw and unvarnished, to the light of day.
His warm skin scent was inside her; his heat infused hers. The prison of his long legs evoked a delicious, terrible thrill she fought and failed to conquer.
Now her hand was beside his mouth, pressed there, feeling the supple skin stretch as he spoke.
‘You have the gall to call that character?’
She opened her mouth but before she could speak he dragged her hand away. A blob of shaving cream fell from their joined fingers.
Did he know he held her so tight that the sensation bordered on pain?
‘Or this?’ He slammed her hand, palm down on his thigh, right up near his hip.
Chloe’s heart galloped high in her chest as she looked at her fingers splayed under his, moulding the wide muscle of his upper leg. Her breath came in raw, shallow gasps at the intensity of the contact.
At his fury. His frustration. Her regret, sorrow and still, through it all, the unrepentant hum of sexual energy that furred her nape and drew her breasts tight and full and heavy.
Under his guidance her hand slid down over soft denim that covered hot flesh and uneven scar-tissue.
The wound was long and jagged.
‘What would you call that, Chloe?’ The jeering note had faded from his voice, replaced by a weariness that betrayed the effort it took to face the world as if it was his for the taking.
These last weeks she’d marvelled at his confidence, his ability to adapt within mere months to his life-changing injuries. His ability to stride without pause through the open French windows of the study, unerringly cross the flagstones and dive without hesitation into the pool. To run a multi-national company despite his impairment.
He even had time to parry and riposte verbally whenever their paths crossed, as if drawing her into conflict was a challenge that afforded him pleasure.
Now, feeling the tremors running through his thigh, the fierce clench of his hand, she glimpsed a fraction of what it cost him to appear in control.
Her heart missed a beat as another protective layer crumbled. Soon there’d be nothing left to keep her safe.
‘Well, Chloe?’ His voice dropped low, reverberating right through her. ‘Is that full of character too? Should I be grateful for the accident that blinded me?’
‘Maybe it sounds trite, but there are lots of people worse off than you.’ Chloe drew a slow breath, refusing to be cowed by his anger. ‘You have your health. You’re mobile. You have the satisfaction of running your own business. You have enough money to live in comfort. Millions of others aren’t that lucky.’
She spoke from experience. Her own foster father, Ted, had been an active, energetic man whom nothing could daunt. Now, still grieving the loss of his wife, he was confined to a rehabilitation clinic, recuperating slowly from the stroke that had immobilised one side of his body and robbed him of speech. And then there was Mark. His death at twenty-two had been fate at its cruellest.
‘You’re right,’ he snapped. ‘It does sound trite.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Not for speaking the truth, but that he obviously wasn’t ready to hear it.
His sightless eyes glittered with barely leashed emotion.
‘Do you have any idea how infuriating it is to be lectured about looking on the bright side? About how lucky I am? To have false hope of recovery held out like a holy grail?’
‘No.’ She stood stiffly.
‘No.’ His expression was grim. ‘How could you know?’
Abruptly he stood, making her shuffle a half-step into the corner to give him room. Still, he held her hand and she wondered if he’d forgotten it.
But then, with a sudden, unerring accuracy, he lifted their joined hands to her cheek. Together they stroked the contour of her cheekbone and her skin came alive at the incredible intimacy of their joined touch.
‘You’re whole,’ he said, so low it was like a vibration rather than a sound. ‘Your life hasn’t turned upside down so that everything you took for granted—everything—is now exponentially more difficult if not downright impossible.’
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