BEST FRIEND’S BROTHER

Turning sideways, she laid both hands over her stomach. The lacy thong, which was all she was wearing now, exposed the slight swell she’d noticed before. Or perhaps she was only imagining it. She was barely six weeks, after all. How soon was a pregnancy visible? She should have asked her mother.Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“Admiring yourself, Sasha?”

The voice was painfully familiar. What wasn’t so familiar was the thickening emotion in his words. If she hadn’t known better, she’d have said that Kaleb had been aroused by watching her touch her body. How long had he been standing in the bathroom doorway? Had he seen her examining her breasts, perhaps? He must have done, she decided, her pulse quickening. That was why he was looking at her with such raw passion in his eyes.

She made herself turn her head and look away from him and for a long moment the silence stretched between them. She knew she ought to grab a towel to cover herself, but something-some perverse desire to taunt him, maybe- kept her from doing so. She wondered what he expected her to say to him. He must know his coming here like this, uninvited and unannounced, was breaking every rule in the book.

They hadn’t spoken to each other for weeks, for heaven’s sake. He even made it clear that he didn’t want to see her again. There was no way he could justify his actions. And she was a fool for not ordering him out of the room immediately.

But all she said was, “Déjà vu, Kaleb?”

And knew he’d know exactly what she meant. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw his hard face darken with frustration.

“Hardly,” he retorted, after a taut moment. “Put some clothes on. I want to talk to you. I’ll wait in the room next door.”

“The bedroom?”

“No, the sitting room,” he amended tersely. “Hurry up!”

Sasha looked back at her reflection. This was her chance to tell him, but she panicked. “Perhaps I don’t want to put my clothes on,” she said softly. “I came upstairs to go to bed. I’m tired. I think you should go now. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

“I won’t be here in the morning,” replied Kaleb through clenched teeth. “I have to go back home. I have to attend a conference in the city. It’s due to last two days. I hope to be back by the end of the week.”

“And this concerns me-how?” Sasha didn’t know how she did it, but she put a note of sarcasm into her voice.

“Just get dressed,” he said shortly, unhooking a velvet-soft bathrobe from behind the bathroom door. He tossed it towards her. “This will do.”

Sasha made no attempt to catch the robe and it fell, unheeded, to the floor.

Kaleb swore and then he came towards her, his reflection joining hers in the mirror, picking up the robe and thrusting it onto her shoulders.

“Wear it.” he said roughly. “Or I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

“Ooh, I’m scared!” Sasha was beginning to enjoy this, although she realized she was playing with fire. Kaleb was not a man to take her provocations lightly, and his expression made her breath catch in her throat.

“Sasha,” he said, the hint of a threat in his voice, but, when he would have wrapped the folds of the robe about her, she deliberately moved away. The robe fell away once more, and Kaleb’s hands brushed against her breasts.

The feeling was excruciating, a mixture of throbbing sensitivity and burning desire. She wanted him to touch them, to rub the palms of his hands over their tender flesh, to bend his head and take one aching nipple into his mouth. His eyes met hers in the mirror and she sensed he knew exactly what she was thinking. Which was a complete turn-off. She didn’t want him to think she’d come here in the hope of rekindling their relationship, and, turning away, she bent and snatched up the robe, sliding her arms swiftly into the sleeves and drawing it tight across her trembling form.

“OK,” she said tersely. “Let’s go into the sitting room. I can’t imagine what we have to say to one another but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

Kaleb stepped aside to allow her to precede him out of the bathroom and she was forced to brush past his still, forbidding frame. He was wearing a dark gray suit which he must have worn to whatever meeting he’d been attending that day, raw silk trousers and jacket, pearl-gray shirt, his tie pulled away from his collar. He looked disturbingly different from when he’d come to her apartment the last time she saw him, but Sasha knew he could look equally intimidating in anything.

The living area upstairs seemed dark and Sasha hastily switched on more lamps, anything to banish the sense of vulnerability she was feeling. Why had Kaleb come to her room? Couldn’t whatever he had to say wait until tomorrow morning? And then she remembered. He’d said he was leaving for a conference in the morning, so at least she would be spared the possible humiliation of him walking into the bathroom to find her throwing up.

Nevertheless, he still disturbed her. Tall, dark and dangerous, she thought, a subtle play on the familiar words. The room was suddenly smaller, closer, more intimate. And she had to get the idea that he’d somehow found out about the baby out of her head.

She wanted to sit down, but Kaleb was making no attempt to do so and she was damned if she’d give him the satisfaction of inviting him to make himself at home. So, she held up her head and regarded him as coolly as she was able, while her stomach quivered and threatened to embarrass her.

Kaleb paused just beyond the archway that led from the bedroom. He was tired and he knew this wasn’t the most sensible time to have a conversation her. The very fact that she’d scuttled away as soon as she’d heard him come in proved that she’d had no wish to see him. Why hadn’t he just picked up what he came for and headed home? Instead, immediately Tilly told him that she was here, he’d immediately gone to look for her.