It was when I had crossed about half the distance to the visitor’s chair that the evil floor struck!
I felt my bare foot slipping on an unusually slippery piece of polished stone. My socks and shoes went flying, and I fell backwards, my arms flailing - until another pair of arms caught me in their strong hold. I gasped as they hauled me up. Not all the way up. Just far enough so I could feel my body pressing against that of the man who held me.
‘What did I tell you?’
Blinking, I tried to dispel the layer of mist that seemed to cloud my vision. Sparkly lights danced in front of my eyes. When they slowly disappeared I looked up into the dark, sea-coloured eyes of Mr Rikkard Ambrose.
‘What,’ he repeated very slowly and clearly, ‘did I tell you, Mr Linton?’
Once again his face was only inches away from mine, and suddenly my shoes and socks didn’t seem quite so important anymore.
I gulped. What was happening? ‘T-to be careful. You told me to be careful.’
‘Yes.’ His eyes darkened further, until they resembled the deepest abyss imaginable. ‘Too bad I don't ever listen to my own good advice.’
Then he plunged down.
For a moment, all my fuzzy mind could manage was the thought: What is he doing? Is he going to butt heads with me?
A second later that question was answered with a resounding negative, as his lips reached mine and enveloped them, soft as velvet and yet unyielding. They started to move, pushing my mouth apart and my conscious self out of my body.
What… wait, this couldn’t be right, could it? If somebody was touching his lips to mine, that would mean that they were… kissing me?
So he was.
Waves of heat raced through me as the realization hit my befuddled brain: Mr Ambrose was kissing me! His lips moving against my mouth, caressing, demanding. How… curious. For a moment, I was just numb.
Then, I remembered the world again, and I felt rage flood through me. How dare he? After treating me so abominably for the last few weeks, after humiliating me in public and insulting me again and again, after trying to rid himself of me a dozen times and wrecking my dreams, how dare he take such liberties with me? First he conspired with his office floor to trip me, and now he was kissing me!
And worse, far worse - he wasn’t just kissing me. He was making me like it! And he was somehow, by some nefarious chauvinistic manly trick, managing to make me kiss him back!
How dare he make me do this? How was he able to force me to respond to his kisses in a way I had never even imagined? I was sure it had to be his fault. Under no circumstances would I ever consent to let a man knead my lips like this, least of all him! The idea alone was abominable! Horrible! Horrific!
Though… now that I thought about it, the reality of it was actually… not… quite… so… horrific…
Somewhere along the line, the thought dissolved and vanished. The clarity of my mind was gone in the blink of an eye. Not drowned in alcohol this time, no. Drowned in the soft touch of his mouth.
His lips on mine felt so soft yet so strong, moulding themselves to the shape of mine, as if they had been meant to be there. As if on their own volition, my teeth opened and bit down on his lower lip, drawing it and him closer towards me. My hands grabbed his waistcoat lapel and pushed and pulled, venting my anger and frustration and… something else. Something I couldn’t name or define. I heard a strangled moan as if from a distance and realized, startled, that it came from my throat.
Suddenly, he broke away from me, leaving me gasping and weak-kneed. I was still in his arms, looking up into his chiselled face for the first time since our lips had touched. I could see something in his eyes, something dark and dangerous. They had widened, and I could see to their utmost, darkest depths.
‘Now do you believe me?’ His voice was still cold as ice, but rough now, as though covered with fresh frost. ‘You could never be like a man. Trust me, I would not have done that if you were one.’
Before I knew it, we were kissing again. My hands wandered from his lapels, over his rock-hard chest and onto his arms. My small hands weren’t large enough to fit around the muscles of his arm, so I grabbed hold of his shirt sleeves to… what? Push him away? Pull him closer? I seemed to be trying to do neither and both at the same time.
I was shaking him. That’s what it was. Shaking him like he had been shaking me, forcing all my anger onto him and into him. I wanted to punch him, to pay him back for all the ways in which he had hurt me, for all the times he had tried to get rid of me, again and again. And now he was kissing me, as if all he wanted was to possess me and never let go - and I was kissing the chauvinistic son of a bachelor back!
Why the heck was I kissing him back? And why was I bloody enjoying it? That wasn’t fair!
The world had stopped making sense.
His lips moved from my own then, to the side of my mouth. Another sound escaped me - not a groan this time, but a growl, like that of a feral beast.
‘Let… go… of… me!’ I managed with enormous effort.
My hands, though, seemed to have other plans: they grabbed him by the lapels again and pressed my lips forcibly to his. Traitors!
We were clenched together like this for I knew not how long. Finally, we broke apart. ‘Why?’ he rasped. His voice was a winter storm. ‘You don't seem to mind.’
His hold tightened around me. I fought against it, fought very hard. When I broke free, I grabbed his collar and pushed him backward until we both rammed into the desk.
‘I’m a girl!’ I growled. My anger was burning like a furnace. The world around me seemed to be lit in colours brighter than the sun, and he was brightest of all. Damn him! ‘I’m not supposed to be in control of my emotions. That’s your job! So stop the hell touching me!’
‘Why don’t you stop?’
I traced my fingers down the side of his hard, chiselled face. ‘Because I don’t bloody want to!’
‘Well, I’m similarly disinclined.’
Oh, bloody hell! If he wouldn’t stop making me feel this treacherously good, I would have to force him! Drawing back my hand, I prepared to slap him.
‘Oh no, you don’t.’
He caught my hand in mid-air. Drawing back the other one, I let it fly! He caught that one, too. Before I knew how, my hands were on his face and I was drawn down towards him. Our lips collided.
On the rare occasions that I glanced between the covers of a romance novel, I had chanced upon an expression that seemed to be a favourite with romantic writers - lips 'melting together'.
Well, our lips didn’t melt. They collided. They collided like a ship and an iceberg. They collided like two stars, one red hot, one icy blue. They collided like two wolves, bent on devouring each other. And so did we.
I nearly knocked him over backwards and rammed his head into the desk. He didn’t seemed to mind, though. He was too busy pulling me down towards him. His hands had found their way to the small of my back. The feel of him there, his fingers skimming over me, holding me close… it was like nothing I had ever felt before.
Oh, I had been touched there before - by insolent fellows at some ball or other who didn’t know how to keep their hands to themselves. But those touches had only ever made me want to reach for a bucket to puke into. His touch had quite a different effect. It made me just want to touch him back. Maybe not even by punching him. Just… touching. Softly.
What was wrong with me? Help!
Slowly, I sank forward until I came to rest on his chest. I was resting against a man’s chest. And I didn’t want to cringe away in horror! What the bloody heck was wrong with me?
This is what you’ve always worked so hard to avoid, a small voice in my head whispered. Get away! You don’t want this! You didn’t ever want a man to touch you like this! But the voice was getting smaller and smaller, until I could no more hear the want a man, and all that was left was an echoing touch… touch… touch…