A Touch of Notoriety(21)

‘Maybe a little lust, then?’ she came back tartly.

His mouth thinned disapprovingly. ‘That would be entirely inappropriate in regard to the future wife of the man to whom I am as close as a brother.’

Beth shot him a scathing glance. ‘That wouldn’t necessarily stop you from feeling that way inside.’

‘I do not feel lustful towards your sister!’ A nerve pulsed in Raphael’s tightly clenched jaw.

‘Protest much?’ she came back tautly.

Raphael regarded her through narrowed lids, easily noting the glitter—of scorn or anger, he was not sure—in the dark brown depths of her eyes, the slight curl to her top lip, her chin tilted up in challenge. ‘Are you attempting to bait me, Beth?’ he finally murmured softly.

She shrugged bared shoulders. ‘Merely trying to ascertain how you feel towards my big sister, and whether or not someone should warn Cesar he has a rival.’

‘You?’

‘No, not me.’ She sighed her impatience. ‘Cesar is altogether too arrogant as it is. A little healthy competition would do his overinflated ego the world of good!’

‘Grace has earned my admiration and respect, nothing more,’

Raphael bit out tautly.

‘Lucky Grace...’

He eyed Beth sharply as he heard her softly murmured response. Because she did not believe she had also earned his admiration and respect? Did Beth want his admiration and respect? Somehow he very much doubted that; Beth Blake gave the impression that she didn’t want or require any man’s admiration and respect!

‘Shall we?’ she prompted sharply as she stepped onto the mat.

Raphael’s mouth twisted derisively as he took in Beth’s fighting stance at the same time as his gaze lingered on the utter femininity of the red painted nails on her bared feet.

‘Don’t let them fool you,’ Beth assured him tauntingly as she saw the direction of Raphael’s slightly contemptuous blue gaze. ‘And don’t hold back, either,’ she warned as he stepped onto the mat and faced her.

A warning she soon had reason to regret when, despite that black belt in karate, she found herself thrown flat on her back three times in as many minutes, and knocking all of the air out of her lungs each time it happened!

She stood up after the last throw, breathing hard, but more determined than ever as she saw that Raphael hadn’t even broken out in a sweat from their exertions, whereas the last few minutes had not only freed several untidy tendrils of her hair from its confining plait, but also reduced her to being, not only sticky hot, but decidedly out of breath. ‘Is that the best you have?’ she taunted.

Raphael gave a grimly wicked smile. ‘I am just warming up.’

That was what Beth was afraid of!

‘You have tells, you know,’ he added with infuriating calm.

She blinked. ‘What?’

He shrugged those deliciously muscled and bronzed shoulders. ‘You glance very slightly to whichever side you intend to throw me, allowing me to shift balance in preparation for that attack.’

‘I do not!’

‘Oh, yes.’ Raphael nodded. ‘In the same way that a poker player might remain still when he has a good hand of cards, but cannot stop himself from pulling on his ear lobe when he is about to make a bluff call.’

She would show him ‘tells’...!

‘Now you are concentrating too hard on not revealing those tells rather than the moves you are about to make,’ Raphael drawled a few seconds later as Beth once again lay flat on her back at his bared feet.

‘Has anyone ever told you that you’re incredibly annoying?’ Beth muttered as she sat up.

‘It has been mentioned before, yes.’ He grinned unabashedly. ‘And implied several times by you, too, I believe.’

She later blamed that grin for what happened next—that self-satisfied and wholly superior grin!—because it wasn’t just annoying, it was infuriating!

So much so that Beth reacted purely on instinct, her feet lashing out at Raphael’s calves, his grin completely disappearing as she followed that kick with a scissor movement that totally knocked him off his feet, allowing Beth to leap on top of him, her body lying flush with his as she pinned his shoulders to the mat.

Only to then become totally aware of every lean and muscled inch of him. Including the hard and pulsing length of his arousal pressing into the soft well between her thighs...!