Transfixed, she waited while that splintering gaze traveled upward, touching off explosions of honeyed fire deep in the hidden places of her body.
Sexuality, bold and predatory, smoldered in the clear pale depths of his eyes.
Heat stole through Ianthe, coloring her skin. Her eyes widened, became heavy lidded, drowsy with desire and invitation. Alex was watching her with half-lowered eyelids, sending delicious shivers through her.
âYou look like a sea nymph,â he said, the words rough and blunt. âI promised myself I wouldnât touch you, wouldnât let you get to me, but it was too late the first time I saw you.â
THE view, Ianthe Brown decided as she glowered through the window, was picture pretty, everyoneâs idea of the tropicsâdazzling white sand, water so blue it throbbed against the hot air, gently waving trees. All that was missing was the sound of surf on the reef and the traditional happy-go-lucky attitude of the Polynesians who lived on those smiling, palm-tasselled islands. And the palms.
Not surprising, since they were two thousand kilometres to the north of this northern part of New Zealand.
Ianthe frowned at the fingermarks on her reddened wrist, then stooped to massage her aching leg. The man whoâd jerked her out of that haven of tranquillity and escorted her into this house was as far removed from happy-go-lucky as anyone could be; his mission had been to get her inside so someone else could interview her, whether she wanted that or not. Normally sheâd have torn verbal strips off him; a sleepless night and the drugged pleasure of having at last closed her eyes and drifted into unconsciousness had temporarily scrambled her brain.
It was back in full working order now, and she was furious.
Of course she could climb through the window and run away, but she had no taste for humiliation; in her present state sheâd be ludicrously easy to catch.
She surveyed the room with critical eyes. Luxuriously spare, it oozed the kind of casual perfection that proclaimed both megabucks and a very good interior decorator. What little sheâd noticed of the rest of the house revealed the same sophisticated simplicity.
A far cry, she thought ironically, from her spartan quarters of the past few years. The cabin on the schooner had been so small sheâd been able to stand in the middle and touch all four sides without too much stretching.
Absently she transferred her weight to her good leg. Five minutes ago sheâd been sound asleep in the shade of the pines, only to be hauled off her rug by an idiot with a manner cribbed from the more mindless and violent films, whoâd ignored her vigorous objections and frogmarched her the hundred metres to a house she hadnât noticed.
Had she, Ianthe wondered with a shiver of foreboding as she straightened, stumbled into one of those films?
No, this was New Zealand. Mafia godfathers didnât exist here.
Awareness prickled across the back of her neck. Without movingâwithout breathingâshe strained to see from the corner of her eyes. On the very edge of her vision waited the tall, lean shadow of a man, intimidating and silent. A mindless panic tightening her skin, she set her teeth and turned.
Sheâd expected the frogmarcher, but the man who watched her with narrowed, icy eyesâeyes so pale in his tanned face that her stomach jumpedâwas an infinitely more threatening proposition. Such eyes, Ianthe thought on a swift, involuntary breath, could indicate an Anglo-Saxon heritage, except that the strong, dark features were cast in a far more exotic mouldâItalian, perhaps.
âWho,â she asked steadily, âare you, and what right do you have to kidnap me?â
Although something flickered in the brilliant gaze, his expression didnât alter. Urbanely he asked, âDonât you have laws against trespassing in New Zealand?â
He spoke like an Oxford-educated Englishman, each clipped, curt word at subtle variance with the deep, rich voice, textured by the maverick hint of an accent she couldnât place.
About six feet tall, he was startlingly good-looking, the angular, autocratic face emphasised by a forceful jaw and a hard, deceptively beautiful mouth. Yet the ice-blue eyesâpiercing as lasers, wholly without warmthâdominated his tanned features, and beneath that uncompromising exterior Ianthe sensed vitality, a fierce energy barely contained by his will-power.