You Can't Fight a Royal Attraction by Ruchi Vasudeva Read Free Book Online Page B

wrinkled her nose at the thin layer of dust. The place certainly needed the cleaner.
    On impulse she hunted down the vacuum cleaner. She plugged it in, put on her earphones and set to work.
    He really had a beautiful place. The occasional touch of art surprised her, peeping out in the form of an ornate mirror frame in a corner or an expensive artwork. Yet mostly each room, apart from necessary furniture, was uncluttered to the point of being bare. He probably hadn’t got around to getting things he liked. She thought of him buying knick-knacks for the house, picking up only what fitted in to that snooty taste. Somehow the image was endearing.
    She was at the bottom of the stairs when something made her look up. And then she stared. Rihaan was coming down the stairs. And all he had on—gulp!—was a towel negligently tied at his waist. What was more, shampooplastered his hair, a foam drop tracking its way down his cheek.
    He brushed it away. ‘I left my laptop downstairs,’ he told her brusquely.
    Obviously he’d gone up to shower when she had been in the other room. But roaming about with shampoo in his hair? He made a beeline for the study and she got a view of a muscled back. And a surprise! A very interesting tattoo just below his nape. Like an emblem of sorts. A horse and a lion, their forepaws raised and in the midst a sword with the hilt up.
    For long minutes she stood, absently removing her earphones, thinking of the dark ink against dusky gold skin, then he was back.
    Soap suds still spotted his chest. A broad chest, smattered with dark hair, which arrowed down to a snail trail on a ridged abdomen.
    Her breath caught and, out of instinct to hide her response, she jumped on the offensive.
    ‘So much for being so disapproving of me at the bar the other night.’ She whipped up her indignation. ‘For all your tirades against me, look just how you’re roaming around!’
    ‘I had to note down something crucial.’ He said, ‘I was in the shower and it struck me like a lightning bolt.’ His voice went down to a mutter. ‘He’s got to go underground, that’s what, and then— Damn it, this changes the whole spin on the story. It isn’t what I thought it was about at all.’
    He was practically vibrating with excitement. So Archimedes was alive and well, it seemed, and having heavenly looks. She gave him an excessively sour look. ‘Is that your way when you have a guest in the house? To traipse around half naked?’
    ‘In the state I was in, be thankful I remembered the towel,’ he said outrageously.
    ‘Really?’ Another dumb retort. Which was a warningthat he had got the better of her. She should be cautious but,
oopsie
, he fascinated her. Hair all plastered to his skull, a damp sheen on his skin, the deliciously musky scent of cologne soap wafting from him that made her breathe in deep…
    Awareness. It stole over her skin. Pounded in her heart. She didn’t need it. Yet it was hard to pull away as, all of a sudden, wine-dark eyes snared hers. The expression in them changed from abstract to piercing in a startling second.
    He stepped closer. She was rooted to the spot. With a long finger, he stroked a line on her cheek and she was hard put not to shiver in response.
    ‘Don’t window-shop, sweetheart. The merchandise isn’t available.’
    Shock coursed along her nerves. Shock that she’d betrayed herself. Shock that she felt like this at all. Was she drooling just at the sight of a muscled chest? Was that what she had come to? Why hadn’t she remembered her earlier flippancy? Easier to keep a distance that way. Keep things light.
    And keep her reactions under tabs.
    Shame heated her cheeks as she turned away. ‘I’m not interested,’ she muttered.
    ‘Then whatever gave me that idea?’
    The rhetorical question drew her back and she made the mistake of looking in the sherry eyes again. A delicious shiver shook her despite all the mental warnings. She could do this all day. Be bathed in the thrill