LITMIR.BIZ

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every fantasy he’d ever had. To his consternation he could all too easily picture her lying sprawled on his bed, her hair fanning out over his pillows as he loomed over her, watching her writhe beneath him and listening to her pant and plead and beg him to do filthy things to her.

      At the vividness of the image his head swam and the entire reason for this conversation nearly shot clean from his mind. Nearly, but not quite. ‘With the morals of a phone-hacking tabloid journalist,’ he added sharply, because it suddenly seemed important to remember that bit.

      She recoiled and took a hasty step back. ‘Crikey, that’s a bit much, isn’t it?’ she murmured, staring at him in astonishment. ‘It was only a quick kiss.’

      Yeah, right, he thought, rather rattled by the discovery that the self-control he’d always taken for granted wasn’t quite as rock solid as he’d assumed. ‘And tell?’

      ‘What?’ She leaned in a little and regarded him closely, the astonishment making way for concern. ‘Look, are you sure you’re all right?’

      No, he wasn’t sure he was all right at all. He wasn’t sure he’d been all right for months. Years, probably. But then maybe that was what happened when you’d been betrayed not once, but twice, by women you once trusted. Maybe it was perfectly natural to develop a cynicism that ran bone deep and a wariness that coloured practically every decision you ever made when it came to the opposite sex.

      Dan shoved his hands through his hair and drew in a deep measured breath in an effort to regain some sort of grip on his control, because now he was coming down from the embarrassingly melodramatic way he’d reacted to the kiss she’d given him it was slowly beginning to occur to him that he might have got this wrong.

      For one thing the woman who’d attacked him was looking at him with such an unusual combination of sincerity, concern and bewilderment, and, now he thought about it, an underlying hint of panic, that she’d have to be a better actress than he’d ever come across to portray such a convincing range of emotion. Her lack of guile seemed pretty genuine too, although given his track record perhaps he wasn’t the best person to pass judgement on that particular trait.

      For another thing, if all she’d wanted was a picture of the kiss, having got what she was after wouldn’t she now be making every effort to leave and go off in search of a buyer?

      So maybe there was another reason she’d approached him, he thought, belatedly applying the logic he would have applied a while ago had she not stolen his brain. Maybe she made a habit of kissing random men. Maybe she’d taken one look at him and for some reason had been unable to stop herself. Maybe she was just mad...

      Another flash caught his attention and he jerked his head away from the woman in front of him and scanned the room until his gaze fell on a guy holding a camera and taking a series of group shots of the women on the far side of the pub.

      And then as he realised that the photos weren’t of him, they weren’t of her, and the guy with the camera wasn’t a paparazzo, and that he had got it wrong, he inwardly groaned. God, maybe he was the one who’d gone mad.

      ‘Forget it,’ he muttered, briefly wondering whether at some point in the not too distant future he oughtn’t address his attitude towards women because surely not all of them could be out for everything they could get.

      ‘Not a chance,’ she said with a little snort. ‘Who are you?’

      ‘Dan Forrester,’ he replied and automatically braced himself for the spark of recognition that usually came with his name.

      But this time it didn’t come. In fact, she was staring at him utterly blankly and he wasn’t sure what to make of it.

      ‘I don’t mean to be rude,’ she said, now looking a bit embarrassed, ‘but is that supposed to mean something?’

      ‘Doesn’t it?’

      She shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not. But then I don’t take much of an interest in anything other than work, so if you haven’t appeared in Significance then it’s entirely possible you’ve slipped beneath my radar.’ She shrugged. ‘Sorry.’

      ‘Significance?’

      ‘It’s a magazine about statistics and data interpretation. Riveting if you’re into that sort of thing, boring as hell if you’re not.’

      ‘And you are?’

      She nodded. ‘For my sins. I’m a statistician. But getting back to the point, I think you might have misinterpreted my kiss.’

      No surprise there. Quite a shock though when her gaze dropped to his mouth and lingered for a second, and he found himself a split second away from grabbing her and kissing her in a way that left no room for misinterpretation.

      Dan swallowed back the impulse, shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his jeans in case they got ideas and reminded himself to concentrate. ‘So why did you throw yourself at me?’ he asked, rather more interested in her answer than he thought he ought to be.

      She snapped her gaze back up to meet his and gave herself a quick shake. ‘Oh. Well. It was all part of my plan.’

      ‘What plan?’

      ‘The one I came up with five minutes ago.’

      ‘That was quick.’

      She sighed. ‘Way too quick as it turns out. It’s my very makeshift, badly thought out, and with hindsight a total mistake plan.’

      ‘But one that somehow involves me?’

      ‘I was rather hoping so.’

      ‘How?’

      Her eyes clouded over again and the panic he thought he’d glimpsed earlier flared in their depths. ‘I’ve got myself into a bit of a fix and I need your help.’

      Her voice suddenly held a faint tremble and her body tensed and Dan went still, every instinct he possessed telling him to get away from her right now because, while he might have been wrong in his assessment of her motives earlier, he didn’t do damsels in distress—however attracted to them he was—and he didn’t do help, and nothing good would come of changing his mind about any of that now.

      But although his brain was waving great warning signs alerting him to the possible dangers of sticking around, something was keeping his mouth from forming a parting shot and something was keeping his feet from moving. To his alarm he was rooted to the spot, strangely transfixed and unusually bothered by the desperation she was emanating, and he was mystified as to why. Surely he couldn’t actually be interested in hearing her out, could he?

      ‘What kind of a fix?’ he muttered since he could hardly carry on standing there in silence.

      ‘See that bunch of women over there?’ She smiled over his shoulder at them and gave a little wave.

      He winced as one of them shrieked with laughter. ‘They’re impossible to miss.’

      ‘I know.’

      ‘What’s the occasion?’

      ‘School reunion.’

      ‘Fun?’ He couldn’t think of anything worse, but then he’d hated his school years.

      She shuddered. ‘Absolutely horrendous.’

      ‘So what are you doing here?’

      ‘I thought it would be cathartic.’

      ‘And is it?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Then why not just leave?’

      ‘Another excellent question.’ She sighed and bit her lip and his gaze dipped to watch, his mouth going dry as he involuntarily imagined nibbling on that lip himself. ‘You’d think that would have been the sensible thing to do, wouldn’t you? The logical thing... But tonight my common sense and logic seem to have deserted me.’

      Dan cleared his

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