Unscripted Seduction - Chapter 10
Ama opened her mouth, words bubbling to the tip of her tongue.
His hand came up at once. ‘Actually, scratch that. Not until after the first course, at least.’ He nodded towards the table. ‘Sit.’
The command slid through her with a force she didn’t appreciate. Especially because some treacherous part of her wanted to obey.
Still, she sat.
The dining space off the kitchen felt far too intimate for two people who had spent the afternoon verbally trying to skin each other alive.
Damian served without flourish. Seared fish over saffron risotto threaded with charred lemon and something green and delicately bitter. It was maddeningly sublime.
She took one bite, then another, and closed her eyes for half a second.
When she looked up, he was watching her with an intensity that made her belly flip. As if her response to dinner mattered almost as much as her response to the pages, and he hated that too.
‘This is ridiculously good,’ she said.
His mouth shifted very slightly. ‘I’m relieved I pass one of your tests.’
‘Don’t get cocky. The evening is young.’
That almost-smile flickered, then vanished.
They ate with only brief conversation after that, the kind that felt less like ease than a temporary ceasefire. By the time he set coffee before her, dark and fragrant in too fine porcelain, the atmosphere had changed again. Softer at the edges perhaps, but no less charged.
Damian sat opposite her, long fingers curved around his cup. ‘Have you satisfied yourself that I’m not a total hack?’
Ama lifted her gaze. ‘We can go down the self-deprecating route if you want.’
His dark brown eyes narrowed. ‘Your sharp tongue is going to get you into trouble.’
She wrapped both hands around her coffee. ‘Yes, it’s a curse I battle every day.’
‘Then someone should shut you up occasionally.’
‘Someone?’
The word hung there as his gaze dropped to her mouth.
Then stayed and stayed.
And the effect? Immediate, startling and so physical it made heat rocket low through her body before she could stop it. Her lips parted on instinct. She wet them once, slowly, and watched something darken in his face.
He made a sound. Not quite a groan but not quite controlled either.
Then he straightened, as if dragged back against his will. ‘Are you satisfied?’
For one wild, suspended second her body answered before her mind did.
With you? Not even close.
The thought flashed through her with humiliating clarity. Her pulse jumped. Heat licked over her skin. And then sense returned, abrupt and almost painful.
He meant the script. Nothing else. And she needed to concentrate on the task. Failure here wouldn’t be filed under Damian’s name alone. It would splash back on hers, proof to every quiet sceptic that she’d been trusted too soon and for the wrong reasons.
Ama set down her cup with deliberate care and met his gaze head-on. ‘It’s a masterpiece,’ she said.
Something flashed in his expression. Pride, maybe. Relief. Something more dangerous.
Then she kept going. ‘If you pull your head out of your own way long enough to finish it.’
Incandescence.
That was the only word for what happened to his face then. Way past mere temper and into a fierce, luminous offence shot through with something hotter, something sharper, until the entire room seemed to contract around him.
He rose without a word.
Flame shot into her pelvis, then lower between her legs, her nipples tightened and oh God…she’d
never been more turned-on than she was in that moment.
As Damian began to prowl towards her.