You Can't Fight a Royal Attraction (5 page)

The alarm beeped, warning of closeness to the kerb, and his attention snapped back to the controls. What was the matter with him? He wasn’t going to get caught up in the attraction she projected.

That she knew perfectly well she projected, he reminded himself. The way she dressed in itself should be a warning to him. This woman knew what effect she had on men. And she seemed determined to provoke him.

He was just as determined not to lose his cool.

So what did this friendship offer signify?

‘Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately,’ he told her, ‘I don’t make friends easily.’

‘I’ve been told people can’t stay distant with me,’ she said with a toss of her head.

‘I do hope,’ he drawled, ‘you don’t thrive on a challenge.’

A gleam was in her eyes when he glanced at her. ‘It can’t hurt to try,’ she came back.

‘Easier said than done.’

‘No pains, no gains.’

‘An uphill task,’ he warned.

‘Not if one is ready to burn the midnight oil!’

‘Getting ahead of yourself, girl!’

‘Um… you know what it is… no hill too high, no road too long…’ she quoted softly, obviously pleased with herself.

‘How about this… keep yourself to yourself or mind your own business.’

She glared at him, then folded her arms primly and made an event of settling down and staring straight ahead. She condescended to award him a single word. ‘Rude.’

He glanced at her, amusement seeping into his voice as he kidded, ‘Turning blue with sulks. Not figuratively but literally.’ He turned the rearview mirror towards her. ‘Have a look.’

T
HE HOUSE THAT
came into view surprised Saira. It certainly was no cottage, yet you couldn’t call it a proper bungalow.

He drove down an enchanting winding road which gave glimpses of sea on every outward curve. Fishermen sitting by their boats. Waves tossing restlessly. Ahead of them, the tall coconut and betel nut trees loomed and then the clumps gave way to open ground and a brick edifice. Clean modern lines, yet walls overgrown with bougainvillea. Quaint stone cherubs on the gateposts flanking the entrance to a short formal driveway. Surrounded by shrubbery and palms, the house looked part of the land itself. Except for the eyesore of a cemented portion jutting to the side.

‘The builders were taking too long so I sent them off,’ he explained in response to her wrinkling nose.

It looked, she decided, like a cake beautifully iced but left part-way.

The inside was as surprising. The riotously flowering garden hadn’t prepared her for the sleek panelled hallway and the plush furnishing of the sitting area it led to. Camel colour leather which she could tell was butter-soft just by looking. She couldn’t help running a hand over the backs of sofas as she passed. Expense. Elegance. Comfort.

He deposited her bag. ‘Let’s show you around. So you know which places to keep clear of,’ he added, mockery adding a gleam to the sherry depths of his eyes.

‘By all means!’ She pulled a face at his back. A well-muscled but stiff-as-a-board back.

He indicated a door. ‘Kitchen and dining that way.’ Then led her in the opposite direction. Down a corridor to, ‘My study.’ He added, ‘Read “no trespass” zone.’

Really, he seemed to be taking the privacy thing to heart.

She followed him inside, curious despite herself. Blue and cream curtains and a handmade rug in a similar print lent an elegant look to the room. Two blue leather cube seats were placed next to a large dark wood antique desk that dominated the space. ‘It’s adorable.’ She ran her fingers over the surface. Smooth. Warm. A modern minimalistic lamp somehow fitted in with it. The military precision with which his laptop, papers, notepad and yellow sticky notes were kept made her raise her eyebrows.

Her glance alighted on his chair and she gave a squeal, startling him. ‘Oh, this is gorgeous!’ Curled feet, carved arm rests, and yet the back and seat were done in soft black leather. It was a delightful mix of antique and modern.

The contrast between the inside and outside made her do a double take. This was his space, she could tell. The space of a man who catered to himself and didn’t bother about appearances. No wonder he didn’t want media attention. From what it looked like, he didn’t need anyone’s affirmation of what he was.

She ran a hand down the back of the chair and almost closed her eyes in sheer pleasure at the touch, then gave in to temptation and sat down in it. ‘Wow! This
is
comfortable.’

‘Extra seven inches of back height,’ he told her.

Well, she was sunk in it. Cocooned practically.

A blue and red paper flag on a
canna
stick caught her attention and she got up and went to the window. ‘What’s this?’ She picked it up, the thin paper rustling as she did.

‘Oh, that! The kids gave it to me for signalling.’ He opened the windows, filling the space with light as sunshine spilled in. She saw a stretch of ground beyond. ‘They play cricket here.’ He added, ‘When I’m thinking, I put this up and they know they’re not supposed to play then because they do make a lot of noise, which disturbs me. But when I’m typing then an earthquake wouldn’t matter. So I put the flag down and they carry on.’

‘That’s pretty ingenious!’

He smiled. ‘Kids are usually. And it works.’

‘So this patch is yours.’ She peeped out. ‘Quite a stretch.’ And so lonely, she thought. All around the sea, the trees and the handful of people she guessed belonged to the fishing village they had passed. Even the resort they had passed was quite a drive away.

‘Do you entertain here?’ she wondered, glancing at him speculatively. The press had recently been filled with his name linked to one or other of the Bollywood bimbos. Yet what girlfriend would agree to be holed up here without nightclubs or bars?

‘If you mean women…’ he followed her easily—were her thoughts that transparent? ‘…prefer to go to her place. Easier all round.’

‘Why easier?’ she asked. She might as well since they had come this far. ‘Easy to get rid of?’ she hazarded a guess.

‘You’re learning not to ask unnecessary questions. I like that.’

‘Do you like being alone so much then?’

‘Women love the limelight.’ He said, ‘My last date, for instance, a budding actress, walked out on me just because I refused to entertain a woodpecker impersonating as a reporter.’

She smiled involuntarily at the expression. ‘You’re that bugged about privacy?’

‘Yes. I have a closet of skeletons I’m allergic to displaying.’

Her curiosity was aroused, but she could see the teasing light in his eyes and knew he had led her on deliberately, so see-sawed between giving in to the obvious questions or keeping her peace. ‘You have to be the strangest man I’ve met,’ she complained instead.

His mouth quirked. The glint in those sherry eyes was different when he was really tickled. A wicked glint, she saw too late. ‘Possibly, but surely not more strange than a woman who caresses leather like it is the skin of the man she desires?’ he said in a low sexy rumble that went straight to her tummy.

The sensual connotation he’d placed on the gesture made the ground shift beneath her feet.

She switched to flippancy, batting her lashes at him. ‘Well, since I’m not allowed to touch
you
, the leather is a convenient replacement!’ She looked at him and saw again something flash in his eyes in response to her daring. What was it? Desire to get even? What form of a reckoning would it be? Punishment or… pleasure?

Crazy girl. You’re in way over your depth!

But she wasn’t going to back down now. Oh no. Her heart thudded as she gave in to the desire to taste the freedom she hadn’t allowed herself for so long. The old Saira, the Saira, reckless and free, was finally escaping the confines she had been kept in.

She gave him a challenging smile and turned to go but a large hand closed around her arm, effectively stopping her in her tracks. ‘You’re taking too many liberties. Be careful of waking the sleeping lion, Sehgal.’

‘Or what would happen?’ she asked innocently, something triggered inside by that stuffy warning that wouldn’t be suppressed. ‘He starts hunting little girls like me?’ She widened her eyes, showing pseudo alarm. ‘Should I hide?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘You really are beginning to try my patience. You know it, don’t you? Then know this too. Little girls who cross the line invite punishments they shouldn’t whine about afterwards.’

‘Darling,’
she stepped closer and smoothed a hand over the soft cotton of his shirt and threw back her head to look up at him, ‘—you know what? I can’t wait!’ she declared breathlessly.

Beneath her deliberate mockery was the distinct smell of a dare. Looking down at her upturned face, Rihaan was tempted to kiss that pout that practically begged him, tension knotting his abdomen as he kept looking into those dark eyes. He was aware of the changing atmosphere and yet for the moment he ignored it.

It was either kiss her or—

‘Have it your way.’ He turned her by the arm and his palm contacted her backside with a satisfying whack. She yelped.

‘Enough for now?’ He attempted to look severe, but amusement at her aghast expression tugged at his mouth.

‘Oh that was…’ she sputtered.

‘Well-deserved?’ He raised his eyebrows.

She scooted away from him. But at the door, safely out of his reach, she recovered and struck a pose, leaning her arm on the door jamb and throwing back her head. ‘Use me, abuse me but never ever refuse me.’ She blew him a lusty kiss, looking so overblown that his crack of laughter resounded in the room. She grinned back like an imp.

‘God, I’ve got a drama queen on my hands.’ He rolled his eyes.

‘You wound me,
don
, I’m just your little
jangli billi
, a wildcat.’

‘Wildcat, my—’ He took a step forward and she slipped out, her laughter echoing back to him.

Irrepressible minx!
Just you wait…

He caught himself up, halfway to the door. What the hell was he doing, grinning away like an idiot? Hadn’t he better things to do?

Saira unpacked her things. Coffee had been brewed and taken, along with the sandwiches. Then all businesslike, Rihaan had indicated to her the location of his home theatre system for her to entertain herself. He told her the cleaner would be in tomorrow since he hadn’t been expected back till tomorrow. ‘Hope you can make your bed. There will be clean sheets in the laundry cupboard on your floor.’ Then he’d disappeared into his den.

The episode of the morning tickled her funny bone. She hoped she haunted him in the den. Having made the bed, she wandered restlessly from room to room. Soon the familiar dead feeling crept back over her.

This was worse than being at Vishakha’s. At least she’d been able to play with Aragham and even go for a walk along the beach. Now time sat heavy on her hands. She wrinkled her nose at the thin layer of dust. The place certainly needed the cleaner.

On impulse she hunted down the vacuum cleaner. She plugged it in, put on her earphones and set to work.

He really had a beautiful place. The occasional touch of art surprised her, peeping out in the form of an ornate mirror frame in a corner or an expensive artwork. Yet mostly each room, apart from necessary furniture, was uncluttered to the point of being bare. He probably hadn’t got around to getting things he liked. She thought of him buying knick-knacks for the house, picking up only what fitted in to that snooty taste. Somehow the image was endearing.

She was at the bottom of the stairs when something made her look up. And then she stared. Rihaan was coming down the stairs. And all he had on—gulp!—was a towel negligently tied at his waist. What was more, shampoo
plastered his hair, a foam drop tracking its way down his cheek.

He brushed it away. ‘I left my laptop downstairs,’ he told her brusquely.

Obviously he’d gone up to shower when she had been in the other room. But roaming about with shampoo in his hair? He made a beeline for the study and she got a view of a muscled back. And a surprise! A very interesting tattoo just below his nape. Like an emblem of sorts. A horse and a lion, their forepaws raised and in the midst a sword with the hilt up.

For long minutes she stood, absently removing her earphones, thinking of the dark ink against dusky gold skin, then he was back.

Soap suds still spotted his chest. A broad chest, smattered with dark hair, which arrowed down to a snail trail on a ridged abdomen.

Her breath caught and, out of instinct to hide her response, she jumped on the offensive.

‘So much for being so disapproving of me at the bar the other night.’ She whipped up her indignation. ‘For all your tirades against me, look just how you’re roaming around!’

‘I had to note down something crucial.’ He said, ‘I was in the shower and it struck me like a lightning bolt.’ His voice went down to a mutter. ‘He’s got to go underground, that’s what, and then— Damn it, this changes the whole spin on the story. It isn’t what I thought it was about at all.’

He was practically vibrating with excitement. So Archimedes was alive and well, it seemed, and having heavenly looks. She gave him an excessively sour look. ‘Is that your way when you have a guest in the house? To traipse around half naked?’

‘In the state I was in, be thankful I remembered the towel,’ he said outrageously.

‘Really?’ Another dumb retort. Which was a warning
that he had got the better of her. She should be cautious but,
oopsie
, he fascinated her. Hair all plastered to his skull, a damp sheen on his skin, the deliciously musky scent of cologne soap wafting from him that made her breathe in deep…

Awareness. It stole over her skin. Pounded in her heart. She didn’t need it. Yet it was hard to pull away as, all of a sudden, wine-dark eyes snared hers. The expression in them changed from abstract to piercing in a startling second.

He stepped closer. She was rooted to the spot. With a long finger, he stroked a line on her cheek and she was hard put not to shiver in response.

‘Don’t window-shop, sweetheart. The merchandise isn’t available.’

Shock coursed along her nerves. Shock that she’d betrayed herself. Shock that she felt like this at all. Was she drooling just at the sight of a muscled chest? Was that what she had come to? Why hadn’t she remembered her earlier flippancy? Easier to keep a distance that way. Keep things light.

And keep her reactions under tabs.

Shame heated her cheeks as she turned away. ‘I’m not interested,’ she muttered.

‘Then whatever gave me that idea?’

The rhetorical question drew her back and she made the mistake of looking in the sherry eyes again. A delicious shiver shook her despite all the mental warnings. She could do this all day. Be bathed in the thrill racing up and down her spine as he hooked her. Her gaze dropped to his mouth. Sensuous. Full. Moist velvet. Somehow reason seemed beyond her at that moment as wild anticipation sped along her pulses. Imagination became chaotic.

‘What happened to the little wildcat?’ he mocked softly. ‘Lion got your tongue?’

Rihaan knew he had to break the spell that seemed to be weaving around them. She was caught in it and her awareness sent such an answering bound of desire in his system that it was taking all his willpower not to give in to it. This was dangerous. Warning bells were clanging away in his mind yet all he could do was move forward to touch her. Exhale the breath trapped in his lungs as he felt skin so soft he could only savour the contact. Only to slide his fingers further, under the curtain of silky hair. She stared back, dark eyes widening, becoming pools of desire he wanted to drown in.

She said huskily, ‘The house is big enough, I think you said. You shouldn’t have any trouble keeping your distance.’ For a second he stilled, then his hand fell away. She stepped back out of his range.