Page 29 of A Star is Scorned
“Ever consider that she might be able to take care of herself?”
Livvy scowled, and Flynn laughed. “All right, all right, Mother Superior. I’m sorry.” She harrumphed at his implication that she was a nun. “Just seems to me that when you let yourself enjoy life a little bit more, you know how to have a good time.”
The words were laced with a hint of something dark and suggestive. How could he go from making fun of her to eliciting sinfulthoughts so quickly? It was dizzying—the way he could change the mood with a lift of his eyebrow or the tone of his voice. But she didn’t want to think too hard about the way that his words made heat pool between her legs moments after he’d irked her with his mocking.
So instead of answering him, she took another bite of fish and savored it, letting the flavors wash over her tongue. He studied her, his gaze following the movement of her fork and fixating on her mouth as she chewed and licked the crumbs from her lips. It would be easy to be self-conscious, but part of her wanted to do it slowly, run her tongue around the edges of her mouth, if only to taunt him and put the shoe on the other foot. She relished having his eyes on her, the way she seemed to hold him in thrall. It made her feel powerful. Something she hadn’t felt in years. Everything had felt too big, too hard, too impossible to ever get on top of.
“Careful, now.” He growled. “It’s not nice to tease. I’ve been known to bite.” On the last word, he clicked his teeth together, like a shark devouring its prey.
Livvy choked on the piece of fish still in her mouth.
Flynn laughed as she scrambled for a glass of water, breaking the spell between them. “Oh, you should’ve seen the look on your face!”
He was still laughing, and all she could do was scowl at being caught out. She threw her dishcloth doubling as a napkin at him, but he ducked, and it landed in the sink. “You did that on purpose!”
His eyes flashed with a hint of the mischief that was always there, lingering at the edges of his existence. “And if I did? So what if I enjoy watching a lady savor”—he paused for effect, the silence implying something lewd—“my cooking.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “What is this? You light acandle. You make me dinner. Are you trying to seduce me?” She leapt off the stool and leaned against the inside of the cabin, trying to put more distance between them. More for herself than for him. She was far too excited at the idea that anyone, particularly Flynn Banks, would want to seduce her. But it would be a mistake to let him see that. She made a show of clutching the neck of her blouse to her throat, silently praying he couldn’t see the rising flush of pink at her neck that signaled her desire.
“A fella can’t make his phony girlfriend dinner? Is there a law against it or something?” He leaned forward when he said it, bracing his hands against the too-small table between them.
If this was one of his pirate movies, he’d sweep the plates off the table, pull her onto it, and ravish her. The thought of it made her bite her lip and drop her hands.
The corner of Flynn’s mouth curled up into a smirk. “You’re thinking something naughty. I can tell.”
She huffed, embarrassed that he could read her so easily. “No! I’m thinking which kitchen knife would be the best to defend myself with.”
He laughed, then held up his hands. “I’ve learned from our fencing lessons not to trust you with a blade.” The compliment made her smile in spite of herself. “In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if I can trust you all.”
She scoffed. “And what is that supposed to mean? Between the two of us, I’m not the one who’s untrustworthy.”
“Oh, really? So you’re not a bald-faced liar?”
Her mouth fell open and she stared at him, scarcely believing her ears. “Excuse me? I’m not the one who’d say anything to get a woman into bed.”
“I don’t need to say anything. I only need to smile.” Hedemonstrated his point, and in spite of herself, her knees wobbled. Jeepers, he was infuriating. And too handsome for his own good.
“It pains me to think what a better man could have done with your face.”
He only grinned even more wickedly. “A better man would have wasted it.”
“Ohhh, you’re impossible.”
“And you’ve done nothing but lie to me since the moment I met you.”
“May I remind you that you jumped into my car?”
“That’s no excuse for fibbing. Not only did you fail to enlighten me of the fact that you were my costar and not, in fact, a tourist—or whatever you wanted me to think you were—but you also pretended that you’d never heard of me or seen a single one of my films.”
She didn’t like where this was going. But in for a penny, in for a pound. “That isn’t a lie. I haven’t seen any of your films. I told you—I prefer to read. If I go to the pictures, it’s to see a women’s picture. Something likeReno Rendezvous.”
She expected him to roll his eyes at her taste in movies, but instead his lips slashed into a wild grin, the look of an animal who had its prey right where it wanted. “Really?” His eyes sparkled, a touch of madness in them. “Then, where did you get the idea for that trick to cut off the wind to theSanta Guadalupe?”
Nuts. She had hoped he wouldn’t notice that, what with trying to keep them all afloat and his efforts to prevent his mainsail from shredding to bits. “I, um, I read about it in a book.”
He leaned further over the table, getting closer to her. “No, you didn’t. You saw it in a movie. InThe Pirate’s Folly, to be exact.It’s the way my character, Captain William Roberts, manages to outrun the Spanish.”
“That’s, that’s, that’s—” she sputtered. She was out of excuses. And the way his forearms were rippling as he leaned all of his weight onto the table was extremely distracting. The corded muscles pulsed with the pressure of his weight, and her eyes moved up to the bulging biceps beneath the clean polo shirt he’d changed into after the race. “That’s ridiculous.”
