Relentless

Running her gaze over him longingly while he had his back turned, Nev held back a sigh. Didn’t he feel how strong the pull was between them? The magnetism was so powerful it sizzled over her skin and settled in her bones. Her lungs couldn’t seem to get a full breath of air when he was in the same room as her. How could he just turn his feelings on and off like that?

To distract herself she picked up the remote and flipped the TV on to a sports show, figuring he’d appreciate that, and sank onto the couch. Behind her, Rhys turned off the lamp. She glanced over her shoulder, expecting him to come over and sit next to her.

But when he turned around and locked his navy gaze on hers, the little oxygen remaining in her lungs disappeared. Her stomach flipped like she’d just dropped three floors in a run-away elevator. Rhys had never looked at her like this. Everything about him radiated erotic promise.

She couldn’t tear her eyes from his while he strode over and took the remote from her. Without breaking her gaze, he hit the power button and turned off the TV, plunging the room into sudden darkness, then leaned over to place it on the coffee table. Silence enveloped them. With him standing so close, invisible currents of electricity leapt across the empty space between them. As her eyes adjusted in the pale moonlight streaming through the window, she caught the stark hunger in his expression. She swallowed hard. He reminded her of a predatory animal, waiting to strike. All she could hear was the thudding of her heart in her ears. She sat completely still.

You wanted this. Little late to be having second thoughts.

He closed the distance separating them and stopped in front of her, then took her hands in his. The simple contact jolted deep in her womb. Nev craned her neck back to meet his eyes, and the sheer desire revealed there stunned a gasp out of her. No one had ever looked at her like that. Rhys’ expression made her think he wanted to eat her alive. When he tugged her to her feet she obeyed without a thought, riveted by his focused expression.

Before she had time to wonder what he would do, he slid his hands up over the intensely sensitive skin of her inner arms and over her shoulders, up her throat to her face. The seductive touch was completely at odds with the molten heat blazing from his eyes and set her heart pounding.

She’d sensed this in him, this volcanic heat beneath the icy exterior he showed to the rest of the world. This was the real man beneath the cool façade. She’d recognized this part of him the moment they’d met in Paris, and yet confronting the overwhelming power of it in the shadowed room wracked a shiver out of her.