Chapter 3
The hand that came swinging for a third slap was caught mid-air, large fingers closing around her wrist until she winced. She braced herself — certain he would retaliate. Instead, he eased his grip, jaw tight, and lifted her pale hand to press a firm kiss against her knuckles while his eyes traveled the curves of her with unhurried heat until color flooded her face and throat. She yanked against his hold. Got nowhere.
"I didn't mean to hurt you."
"Let go."
Rather than comply, he drew her hand to his chest and pressed it flat against the broad plane of muscle there — and she felt it through her palm, the heat and the tension — while her cheek burned for an entirely different reason.
"You're surprisingly strong for your size."
Not that it seemed to inconvenience him in the slightest. The actress who maintained her figure through hot yoga and regular swimming panted with indignation. She hadn't expected to find herself dealing with a man who was simultaneously insufferable and built like something engineered for the purpose. She could feel it under her hand — he'd be absurd without his shirt on.
He curved his mouth like he'd read every word of that thought. His free hand drifted to the bare curve of her waist, and her narrowed eyes went wide as she twisted away.
"Don't."
"I thought you only dealt with the generous ones." His sharp eyes were half-lidded, amused, as he reached up and began undoing his shirt buttons one by one. She couldn't breathe. Every instinct she had screamed at her to move, but she had nowhere to go.
"I meant men who respect women. Who don't treat them like transactions."
"I respect women enormously."
"Then what do you call implying I came here to sell myself to your friend?"
"Getting there first. Because I want you for myself."
"Someone like you—" Phutphitchaya's mind raced, scanning for exits. He showed no sign of stopping, studying her face with the loose, settled attention of a man who had already decided how the night ended — undressing himself with the patience of someone who had nowhere to be. "Wasawat Siwirachatphakdi's friend. You could have anyone. Finding a woman can't be that difficult for you."
"It really isn't," he agreed pleasantly, without a trace of modesty.
"Then why force someone who isn't willing? Doesn't that seem beneath you?"
"Doesn't it," he said, as though genuinely considering the point — and shrugged the shirt off entirely. Her eyes betrayed her for exactly half a second. The large frame lowered, arms bracketing her body, one hand tracing the line of her jaw with a fingertip and seemingly fascinated by the smoothness of it, while she went rigid against the warmth of him moving closer. "So stop resisting and be mine. What's undignified about that?"
"Because I don't belong to anyone."
"Not even Sia Bancha?"
"Don't bring him up again—"
"You're very protective of him."
"It's none of your business."
Phantakan had never in his life felt jealous of another man — least of all one his father's age. But the particular irritation that moved through him watching her defend Sia Bancha with such unguarded feeling made him clench his back teeth, then force it down, because he didn't lose his composure like this. He never had.
"Chanya, right."
She fixed him with a flat stare instead of answering. "Get off me."
"I haven't gotten on you yet."
"You are disgusting—"
She barely managed to look away from his expression before a large hand locked around the back of her neck, and his mouth found her cheek, then the line of her jaw, then the pale curve of her throat — while she cursed at him, loudly, and with feeling.
Then the cursing stopped. Because he found her mouth again, one hand braced against her jaw before she could follow through on the very clear intention to bite him, a low satisfied sound escaping him at the taste of her.
Phutphitchaya shoved against him. Got nowhere. She felt like she'd been strapped onto something that moved too fast and climbed too high, with no way down — frightened and furious and underneath all of it, something she absolutely refused to name that had been awoken without her permission. She was an actress. She had technique. She reached for her composure the way she'd been trained to, scraping it back together with both hands.
When he finally lifted his mouth from hers, the only sound she made was a breath — quiet and unsteady and embarrassingly unlike her own voice. She startled when she registered his hand, the deliberate movement of it at her side, his mouth dropping to close over her and she arched against her own will—
"God — stop—"
"Mm." He didn't stop.
If before she had been on the ride itself, now there was a fire waiting below it — and she was being burned from two directions at once. She writhed, gasping, trying to pull herself free like a person who couldn't see the way out because every direction had been filled with smoke, with heat, with him, and her body had stopped taking instructions.
She would never know how far she would have let this go if he hadn't let his hand travel further up the inside of her thigh — slow, deliberate, certain of its welcome — until his knuckles pressed and she jolted violently out of the haze.
"God — no—"
Phantakan pulled back — just in time to catch her as she erupted, shoving and striking at him with both hands in every direction at once, blind and furious, until he had to pin her down. The narrow sofa became a battleground until the combined momentum of both of them rolled off the edge entirely, spilling onto the thick carpet and taking half the contents of the coffee table with them — at the exact moment the door to the room banged open.
"Oh my god — what in the — Paan, what is HAPPENING, where is your DIGNITY—"
The high voice — belonging to a man who had spent considerable effort making it otherwise — made the young man currently swearing under the weight of Phutphitchaya, who had ended up on top of him and was using the opportunity to cause as much damage as possible, yank her against him instead. He pressed her head firmly against his shoulder, using his larger frame to shield the half-undressed one — considerably smaller — from the doorway. He did this with one arm. The other was occupied keeping her from continuing.
Phantakan turned his head toward the door and looked murderous.
"Who told you to open that."
"I — ah — um — eeeee—"
"Wait — Wikan?" The breathless voice against his neck, caught somewhere between relief and delight, told him she knew exactly who had just walked in.
"Let me go."
"Who is this."
"Chanya's personal manager," came a second voice — a man's, unhurried. "Khun Wikrant. He came to collect his artist."
Wasawat Siwirachatphakdi stood just inside the doorway, hands in his pockets. Behind him, the 'personal manager' in question had already turned to look at Phantakan with an expression that could only be described as appreciative — and somewhat wistful.
"You can call me Wan. Or Wanhom. Whichever feels more natural," said the impeccably dressed twenty-eight-year-old, his voice softening by several degrees as he tilted his head back to look up at the mixed-blood man above him. Phantakan was admittedly tall. Wan himself was nearly six feet and still had to look up.
"Khun Wan," Wasawat confirmed pleasantly, catching his friend's eye across the room — where Phantakan was exhibiting what could only be described as the energy of a cobra guarding an egg.
An egg that was, from what Wasawat could see from this angle, smooth-skinned and extremely well-proportioned, with a very small waist and hips that curved in a way that explained a great deal about his friend's current state of mind.
"You could have the decency to wait outside," Phantakan said, low.
"Right, yes, of course, my apologies, Khun Chanya—" The homeowner shrugged with an expression of cheerful insincerity and bent toward his guest. "I'll wait downstairs, Khun Wan."
"I'll bring Paan — I mean, Chanya — right down."
"Didn't know Khun Chanya's nickname was Paan," the homeowner remarked, pausing.
"Her spiritual advisor gave it to her. Said it complements Phutphitchaya — good for her career prospects. To be honest she didn't want to change it in the first place because it doesn't match her sisters' names. Their family has very charming names, all of them."
"Oh? What are they?"
The listener pressed his lips together. His expression was one of total, focused interest.
"Paan, Prae, Mai — all fabrics for nicknames. And for formal names, flowers — Phutphitchaya, Una—"
"Wanhom." The actress cut across him with the energy of someone who had reached the absolute end of their patience. Her humiliation was thorough and complete. Her personal manager appeared to be far more interested in providing biographical detail to a stranger than in the welfare of the client he had supposedly come to rescue.
If Wasawat invited him downstairs, Wan would absolutely leave her up here.
"Right, yes, sorry, Khun Chanya—" Wikrant cleared his throat and turned to her with his most placating expression, gesturing for Wasawat to go ahead and pulling the door closed behind them — though not before his eyes traveled one last time over her head to the two of them, lingering with visible curiosity for exactly one second too long.