52
A set of long fingers supported the golden jut of his jaw while one finger lay across the thin stretch of his mouth. And his dark eyes glittered.
“I don’t know what happened,” she answered, keeping to her decision to play the whole incident down.
“If you’re lying to me I will find out,” he warned her quietly. “Augustus staff is checking film footage as we speak. I saw you fall, and I believe you were pushed. I want to know who you think did that to you and why you believe that they did.”
“It could just have been an accident,” Vivian sighed out. “I don’t understand why you are obsessing on it.” For an answer he dipped his hand into his pocket and drew out his phone. She knew without having to ask that he was going to call Augustus and get the information he wanted from him.
“You are such a bully-put your phone away,” she snapped, adding another sigh of weary surrender this time when he continued to hold the phone at the ready, eyes fixed like stubborn black lasers on her pale face.
“I think I know the man who pushed me,” she admitted. “But I don’t know his name. He said… he seemed to be mad about the fact that I was there with you instead of his sister”
“Bruce Bennet…” he fired a sharp frown at her. “He was there tonight?”
Moistening her taut lips Vivian nodded. “I guess… I mean I don’t know. He -approached me as I was about to go outside…” Her eyes darkened with anger when she recalled the way he had grabbed her and hustled her into that corner. “He caught hold of me and began throwing all kinds of wild accusations at me. He-he said he didn’t mind hurting me if anything happened to his sister.”
“I’m going to kill him…” Scott hissed.
“Who was he?” Vivian asked. “He seemed very angry with you… and…. Were you… were you really supposed to be with his sister?”
He had not asked her to be with him as a date. She was there for work, but still, the fact that he obviously had someone he was in a relationship with hurt her so much. Was she the one he had been going out on a date with the other night before he met her?
He shrugged. “He’s just someone mad at me because of some work stuff. He doesn’t like to accept defeat.”
Vivian couldn’t believe her ears. “So I get harassed and pushed, and you don’t think that I deserve more explanation than that nonsense you just said?” Vivian was stunned by the level of both men’s conceit! “I suppose you also think I deserved all I got when I landed in the pool!”
“Come on, Vivian. I didn’t say that.”
“It doesn’t matter, because you’re not saying what you should say either!” So upset now, she pushed up her chin and looked away from him, fighting the tears trying to burn in her eyes. “The both of you are the same, you know. Just two, rich and proud men who only care about themselves. He bruised my wrist too but I suppose I should apologize for not allowing him to throttle me at the same time!” she shook out thickly. “Perhaps you could-W-what are you doing-?” she broke off to choke out.
He’d undone his seat belt and arrived across the gap separating them with the speed of an attacking snake! Now he was picking up her bruised wrist and inspecting it, the curses that flooded from him should have turned the dark night air bright blue.
“I will kill him,” he grasped again, going pale with fury when he saw the livid purple fingerprints marking her delicate skin.
Vivian snatched her wrist back, hurting it in the bargain, but she just did not care. “You…men-you are all the same, ready to parade your macho strength when you feel like it,” she shook out in burning contempt. “No, don’t touch me.” She jerked away when he tried to capture her bruised wrist again. ” l am angry with you!”
“I can see that,’ Scott said quietly.
Her face flushed, the tears daring to press against the muscles in her throat now. “I behaved myself tonight-for your benefit! I did not do anything to earn your contempt! It was not my f-fault that a nasty p-person like Bruce or whatever his name was wished to push me in the pool-and you are not my hero just because you happened to pull me out of it!”
The helicopter had come to a standstill without either of them noticing. Vivian undid her seat belt and stepped over Scott, just needing to get out of there before she did something really stupid like bursting into a flood of hot tears!Property © of NôvelDrama.Org.
She was already halfway to the house by the time Scott had stepped onto the darkened lawn. With a growl of frustration he strode after her and entered the house in time to watch her fly up the stairs. And even in flight the sensual flow of her lush black-clad figure reacted on him with all the gut-grinding promise of a-
“Oh damn it,” he breathed.
He wanted her. His hand snaked up to grab hold of the back of his neck. He was not her hero, but he had this angry desire to charge up those damn stairs after her and at least be her lover! He remained standing like that for the next thirty control-clutching seconds -until he heard her bedroom door close with a thud. Then with a violent swing of his body he strode off towards the back of the house, discarding his clothes as he went. By the time he reached the door which led into his all-purpose gym he was almost naked but for a pair of black cotton undergarments that molded his fiercest problem with no conscience at all.
He used the gym as if it was his own personal war zone, pounding his body through a series of physical drills that did nothing to ease what was really driving him. Giving up on that form of torture he slammed through another door and dived into the glistening blue waters of his indoor swimming pool. Fifty hard laps later and he was climbing out again and heading back through the house, grimly gathering up his discarded clothes as he went.
The exercise didn’t fix everything but it helped. He also intended to get drunk a little, and maybe a little bit of cannabis to get him as high as possible so he could sleep this thing off.
The moment he reached his bedroom he headed for the bathroom. The heat of the shower made his glistening skin sweat and his chest was heaving from his recent exertions, but one part of him still dominated everything else. Cursing he switched the shower to cold and punished himself by letting the icy water dowse his entire frame. By the time he came out of the bathroom covered by a white toweling robe he thought he was finally beginning to get a grip.
Then a soft knock sounded on his bedroom door and he knew, even as he walked barefoot across the room, that no matter how hard he’d worked at it, he’d controlled nothing at all. For there was only one person in this house who could be knocking on his door and she was naive enough and blind enough not to know what she was tempting by doing it.
And there she stood in a short ivory silk robe with her recently shampoed hair a pagan swathe of glossy damp waves around her beautiful face. Her eyes looked anxious. A set of even white teeth were pressing into her full bottom lip.
“I’m s-sorry to disturb you,” she stammered out, “but I n-need…” The stammer did it; the big dark eyes staring up at him did it, the pearly white teeth worrying her lip. She’d been disturbing him for too many frustrating hours and days and weeks, and he just reached for her and pulled her into his arms, then drove his hungry mouth down onto hers.
And the hell of it was, she let him. Next thing he knew he was stepping back with her trapped against him and kicking the door shut so he could press her back against it to indulge in the kind of hot sensual embrace that said goodbye to his self-control.
Vivian fell into the kiss like a starving woman. It was so much what she wanted there wasn’t a single second when she thought to pull free. Her arms had already wrapped around his neck to fasten tightly and she was kissing him back so deep and hotly she did not recognise herself. The feel of his strong hard masculine body pressing against her felt glorious, the flood tide of pleasure that went rushing through her made her gasp and groan and quiver feverishly as he explored her mouth with a deep hot knowing intimacy which had her lips open wider in search for more.