Page 31 of Fatal Deception

She dug the finger in deeper. “Screw you.”

He put his hand over her wrist, pulled her finger out from drilling into his chest. “Yeah, right back at you.”

He was too close, he realized in the silence that settled over them, fraught and angry. He held her wrist and they were eye-to-eye, practically nose-to-nose, in this odd little position.

Her cheeks were flushed with temper, and those blue eyes flashed with it. Her temper might have stoked his, but it wasn’t just that. This close, just like last night, when they’d argued, it became something else.

Because neither leaned back. He didn’t drop her arm and she didn’t try to pull it away. They stayed right where they were. Too close and too annoyed by each other.

And too…something else. That incessant pull. A magnetic force all its own. A throb, an ache. He knew he shouldn’t drop his gaze to her mouth, all twisted up into a scowl. And he knewthatshouldn’t make that ache deeper.

But it did.

She was just so damn pretty. Stubborn and obnoxious, and he was perverse enough to like exactly that. She didn’t fall apart at…anything.And why that made him want to handle it all, he didn’t have a clue.

But it was more than handling things because he wanted his hands on her and that was a line he absolutely had no business crossing.

Damn, he wanted to.

It would be an absolutely colossal mistake. There would be no defense, no crawling out from under it. If he touched his mouth to hers, everything imploded no matter how carefully he handled it.

And still, he was just a whisper away from doing it. Because no amount of rational thought seemed to break through this ridiculously tight magnetic pull that seemed to exist.

Then her phone rang, and they both jolted apart. Like caught, guilty teenagers.

For a moment, maybe just a second, they stared at each other, maybe in mutual shock. Whathadthey been thinking?

But then she looked down and pulled the phone out of her pocket. He didn’t miss the way her hand shook. The way she cleared her throat and licked her lips. And that was the problem.

He could deal with a little one-sided and inappropriate lust. It was a harder thing to do when the feeling was clearly mutual.Thatwas going to lead to a very dangerous mistake.

“I-it’s Thomas,” she said, looking at the screen of her phone very,veryintently. “Vi must have had the baby.”

He gave a sharp nod, moved into a standing position, and tried to be very grateful about the perfect timing of the baby’s arrival as Audra answered the phone.

Instead, he just felt edgy and irritable.

And it was all her fault.

Chapter Ten

Audra felt like she’d touched an electric fence. Her skin vibrated. And it wasn’t a pleasant sensation.

Mostly because there was nocure. Except something very, very, very stupid.

And that wouldn’t solve anything. Copeland Beckett was no knight in shining armor, even if he could look at her like that and turn all that frustration and anger into something else entirely.

She swiped the screen of her phone to answer the call before it went to voice mail, trying to pretend Copeland wasn’t still closer than she wanted him to be.

And somehow not close enough at all.

“Hi, Thomas,” she greeted, wincing at how shaky she sounded.

But Thomas must not have noticed, thank goodness.

“Baby’s here. Fox Frederick Hart. Twenty-one inches. Eight pounds even. Pictures incoming. They’re both doing great, and Vi said she’s up for visitors whenever you want to come out.”

It was the best distraction she could have hoped for. She could stop thinking about that low throb in the pit of her stomach, and the way Copeland’s dark eyes hooked right into her and focus on new babies and family.