The Thorn in His Side Read Free

moment, but fine was not one of them!
    ‘If I
am fine
it will be no thanks to you.’
    Libby was too startled to hear him speak to immediately place the attractive accent of his deep hostile voice,though even hostility sounded amazing when spoken in that voice … a deep and rich purr with a tactile quality that made the downy hair on her arms stand on end.
    ‘I realise that you have to make your own entertainment in the countryside, but throwing yourself in the path of moving vehicles is perhaps a little
extreme.’
Still clasping his head, Rafael rotated his shoulders experimentally and swore as his bruised muscles protested.
    Libby’s natural response to sarcasm and rudeness, this comment being both, had always been to give as good as she’d got, but given the fact she’d almost killed this man it seemed appropriate to repress such impulses and bite back the retort trembling on her tongue.
    ‘What were you trying to do? Attract my attention? Or is this some local quaint mating ritual?’
    Bite me,
Libby thought as her initial relief morphed into indignation. Struggling to retain a suitably meek demeanour in the face of this barrage of insults, she mumbled an apology.
    ‘I really didn’t mean for this to happen …’
    Any attempt to defend herself at this point would only sound lame.
    What am I going to tell Chloe?
    She began making a silent inventory of her achievements—almost killing a man, smashing up his car and losing her friend’s beloved pet, difficult to top, but the way things were going, she thought glumly—who knew?
    ‘I’m so … so sorry,’ she said with genuine remorse.
    ‘Oh, that’s all right, then.’
    Libby felt her cheeks warm with embarrassment in response to the sarcastic drawl as her victim, one hand still clamped to his forehead, turned, head bent forward, and presented her with a view of his broad shouldersand the back of his glossy dark head as he switched his attention to the clasp on his seat belt.
    Her glance flickered from the dark hair curling at his nape to the bloody smear on the glass. It was a timely reminder of her role as evil perpetrator while he was the innocent victim.
    With a mumbled imprecation she reached for her phone. ‘Ambulance … I’ll make the call.’ Better late than never, Libby.
    As she began to speak the man’s seat belt freed and he turned. Libby’s attempt at a soothing smile dissolved as her lips parted to emit a small mewling gasp of shock, not because the man was injured—she had been prepared for that—but because he was …
He was beautiful!
    From the extravagant sweep of his preposterously long eyelashes to his chiselled cheekbones, imperious nose and wide sensually sculpted lips, he was utterly and lethally gorgeous, but it was the aura of concentrated raw sexuality he exuded that made her stare at him helplessly. Physical awareness clutched like a fist low in her belly and trickled down her spine, making her shiver repeatedly in response to his in-your-face masculine sexuality.
    She was so stunned that it took her several moments before she finally registered the cut oozing blood on his broad forehead, a cut that ran from above his right eyebrow and vanished into his dark hairline, and the suggestion of pallor beneath the surface of his even-toned golden skin.
    Get a grip, Libby, you’ve seen good-looking men before—but none this good-looking, said the voice in her head and she could not disagree. He was incredible!
    And hurt,
a timely reminder. She bit her lip, loweredher gaze and gave a guilty grimace. The forgotten first-aid course had definitely not included drooling while the accident victim bled to death!
    ‘I think …’ Libby’s voice trailed away. She lost her chain of thought completely as the injured man stared back at her from unblinking tawny cinnamon-coloured eyes set beneath heavy eyelids framed by those long curling lashes that were as dark as his strongly defined ebony brows.
    The gleam in his dark eyes as they held