Page 18 of The Billionaire's Last-Minute Marriage
Good grief, he was staring at her and she suddenly remembered that she was sprawled out on her bed in her underwear. Letting out a very unladylike squeak of dismay, she pulled a pillow down into her lap, not that he would be interested much, she told herself. Perhaps he would simply ignore her entirely and pretend she didn’t exist. That, she could deal with.
She inhaled a deep breath, letting it hiss out slowly between her teeth as she forced herself to look him in the eye.
Xander Mytikas was trying his very best not to laugh at her.
Good God, she was an absolute train wreck. And instead of answering with some clever quip that made her seem sophisticated or, better yet, made him completely doubt his sexual prowess, Pandora did the worst possible thing.
She threw the pillow at him.
She didn’t know why she did it, she only knew that she needed to defuse the awful tension threatening to burn her abdominal muscles to cinders. It seemed to arc across the bedroom in slow motion in a direct line for his smirking face. He caught it before it even came close to hitting him, his still-wet muscles glistening as he flexed. Of course, the infuriating man had the reflexes of a cat as well as the body of a god.
‘Sorry.’ She sat up against the headboard. ‘I didn’t mean to...’
‘You didn’t mean to pick up a pillow and deliberately aim it at my face?’ One dark brow was raised in her direction. ‘You know, if we were still in the office, thiscouldbe classed as bullying.’
‘You were mocking my discomfort. I acted in self-defence.’ She sniffed, pressing a hand against her stomach to tamp down that annoying heat once again.
‘Tell me, Pandora...what exactly was making you so uncomfortable?’
His question was seemingly innocent, but...was she imagining it or had his voice lowered slightly? He still stood a few feet from the bed, patiently waiting for her answer.
‘You know what you look like, Xander. I’m not going to inflate your monstrous male ego any further.’
‘Monstrous.’That damned smirk was widening. ‘That’s a very unattractive word to use. I’m wounded. And yet...my looks have never made you act this way in the past. What changed, I wonder?’
‘This, obviously.’ She gestured vaguely in the direction of his naked chest where the red pillow was fast devolving into a soggy mess. Goodness, she knew the feeling.
‘Which part, exactly?’ He made a show of looking confused, glancing downwards. ‘Just so I know what to keep out of your sight for future reference.’
Against her will, her eyes followed, raking over his perfect pectorals and downwards to where a treasure trail of trimmed hair led to... She inhaled sharply, looking up to find his eyes on her, watching her without a single trace of the humour that was there before. In fact, he looked almost...angry. Which was utterly ridiculous, because he was the one who’d started this whole thing, not her.
After a moment he cleared his throat. ‘You’re in the wrong bed.’ And with that he strode from the room, leaving all the connecting doors open behind him.
She lay still, listening to the sounds of him moving around his bedroom, no doubt trying to find something to cover up his nudity so that his awkward little bride would stop ogling him like some kind of sex-starved nymphomaniac.
Fighting the urge to groan her sheer mortification into her pillow, she lay back and stared at the silky ivory canopy above the bed.
Perhaps if they had been a true married couple this would be the kind of thing that they would laugh about. But they were not truly married, he was not truly her husband and he most definitely was not hers to stare at like a piece of cake in a shop window.
She felt the bed dip and suddenly she was no longer alone under the canopy.
‘What are you doing?’ She sat up bolt straight.
‘I’m a man of my word,’ he said simply, lying back on the pillows. ‘If you won’t come into the other room, I’ll sleep with you in here.’
It was a ridiculously large bed, big enough for them to both spread out and still be in no danger of touching. And yet, she swore the entire room heated up by a few degrees, as though her skin could sense him nearby.
‘Are you comfortable?’ he asked, his voice floating across the bed. ‘Do you need me to move closer so you can sleep?’
She made a prim noise of assent as she continued to ensure that her body remained still and out of accidental touching range. The bed moved as she felt a large weight dip to her left. She didn’t dare to look.
‘That’s enough, thanks.’ She practically breathed the words. Praying he didn’t choose this time to ask any more questions.
She didn’t know how long she lay stiff, her mind racing. It was like this sometimes, during times of change. As if she had drunk a vat of caffeine and seven different streams of consciousness were battling for prime position in the forefront of her mind’s eye. Couple that with sharing a close space with Xander’s delicious scent and, well... She closed her eyes in frustration rather than hope, knowing she would not get any more sleep that night.
She could sense it, the moment his breathing deepened and sleep claimed him. A quick glance over her shoulder confirmed it, as his long eyelashes lay completely still at the top of his cheeks. It seemed there was nothing unattractive about him, as was evidenced by his strong patrician profile in the moonlight as Pandora tried and failed to drift off to sleep. She hadn’t meant to stare at him, while she was tossing and turning, but she could only ever fall asleep on her left side, so therefore the only thing in her vision was his face.
He had such a touchable face.
