Page 31 of One More Sleepless Night

‘Oh, that kiss,’ he said as if it hadn’t been on his mind constantly over the last fortnight.

‘That’s the one. So what do you think?’

‘About trying it again?’

She nodded.

‘Well, it’s an interesting proposal,’ he said, and shot her the hint of a cool and with any luck condescending smile, ‘and a very flattering one, of course, but I’m afraid it’s out of the question.’

Nicky tilted her head and bit her lip as she stared at him. ‘Out of the question?’

He nodded. ‘Out of the question.’

‘Why?’

Good point. Why was it out of the question? he wondered, his gaze dropping for a split second to that lip before he snapped back to his senses and dragged his eyes back up. ‘I’m rather surprised you’d want to.’

‘Are you?’

Now she was the one who sounded surprised, and frankly that was odd because surely she couldn’t have forgotten her total lack of interest in that kiss. ‘You didn’t seem all that keen at the time,’ Rafael said, and reminded himself that whatever it was that was stabbing at his chest it couldn’t be hurt because he’d got over all that weeks ago.

‘No, but things have changed.’

‘How convenient.’

‘Not entirely, but is my perceived lack of interest your only objection?’

‘Not by a long shot.’

‘Then what else is it?’

For a second he just stood there looking at her, his mind boggling. God, where to start? ‘For one thing I don’t particularly want to.’ That was as good a place as any.

‘Why not?’

‘It wasn’t exactly a success the last time we tried it,’ he drawled, thinking that that was at least partly the truth. ‘So why on earth would I want to go through it again?’

‘It would be better this time. I guarantee it.’

‘There isn’t going to be a this time.’ And he could guarantee that.

There was a brief pause while she glanced at his jaw, his shoulders, and lifted her eyebrows. ‘Are you absolutely certain about that?’ she said eventually. ‘Because you look remarkably tense for a man who isn’t interested in experimenting with one harmless little kiss.’

Harmless? Kissing Nicky? Hah. Rafael forced his shoulders to loosen up and then shrugged. ‘Well, I’m not,’ he said as if he couldn’t be more relaxed. ‘I, for one, have moved on.’

She nodded and bit her lip. ‘Ah.’

‘As I told you at the time my attraction to you was mercifully short-lived, and I got over it days ago.’

‘Oh, yes. I remember. It was an aberration. The sun or the wine or something.’

Now it was his turn to arch an eyebrow because she sounded so continually sceptical and somehow knowing that it was seriously beginning to wind him up. ‘Is it really that hard for you to believe your charms aren’t irresistible?’

‘Of course it isn’t.’ She regarded him thoughtfully and as she did so an odd thread of trepidation began to wind through him. ‘But if you’re not interested, as you claim, if you’re no longer attracted to me, and if that kiss was so unimportant, why for the last ten minutes have you been staring at my mouth as if desperate to feel it beneath yours again?’

The foundations of his defences wobbled, and Rafael set his jaw to hold back the sudden burst of desire that he’d managed to convince himself he’d obliterated but was now pounding away at them. ‘I haven’t.’

‘You have.’

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