Blame It on the Bikini - By Natalie Anderson Page 0,9

time spread on a sofa being kissed to glory by Brad.

‘You were wearing one of Lauren’s dresses,’ he said slowly.

‘Yes.’ She was amazed he’d now remembered that detail. Mya had butchered one of Lauren’s many formal dresses. A soft, pretty pink dress—never a colour she’d normally wear. She’d taken to it with a pair of scissors and completely cut away the back and secured it with long, trailing ribbons. She’d been aiming for a soft romantic look.

It was the dress that she’d hoped might garner her the attention she’d thought she’d wanted. All she’d wanted to do was fit in—to be popular and accepted. To be just like the rest of them and not different for once. She’d wanted it to all be easy. But it was never as easy as a change of clothes. Make-overs didn’t change the person underneath. She hadn’t just been sixteen and never been kissed. She’d made it all the way to eighteen and first-year uni before that honour had fallen to a fellow student who’d seemed sweet enough until he’d had what he wanted.

But back at that night of the dance, she’d had the whole prom fantasy. What wallflower schoolgirl didn’t? The one where the hottest guy in school asked her to dance and it was all perfect and ended with a kiss. Or the super-hot brother of the best friend asked her? Yeah, she’d been such a cliché. And she’d felt like a princess for all of five minutes, until Brad had ignored her. She’d been pretty and dressed up and hadn’t even been able to turn the head of the most sexually hungry male she knew back then.

‘You were too busy wearing that blonde to answer at the time,’ Mya said dryly.

The dimple in his cheek deepened. ‘Yeah, that’s right.’

He hadn’t appreciated his younger sister’s interruption. Mya had seen the raw lust in him, the tease, the firmness with which he pulled the girl onto his lap—his strong arm wrapped around her waist, his confident hand close to her breast. And for a few minutes, she’d wanted to be that girl. Now for five minutes she had been. And it was better than any fantasy.

Mya sucked up her stupidity and turned her self-scorn towards him instead. ‘That’s all irrelevant anyway. What’s really the issue here is how pathetically horn dog you are. You get a look at a woman in her bikini and you’re suddenly hot for her? When you’ve never so much as looked at her in the last decade?’

Amusement still burned in his eyes. ‘You were a child a decade ago.’

‘It’s still pathetic.’ And frankly, insulting.

‘Maybe that prom night isn’t so irrelevant at all.’ His smile widened. ‘Did you have a crush on me back in high school? Your best friend’s older brother?’

She gaped.

‘Because,’ he leaned closer and drawled outrageously, ‘you wouldn’t have been the only one.’

Hell, the guy had an ego. Unfortunately what he’d said was true. There were several girls who’d done the faux-friendship thing to Lauren just to get close to her brother. Mya shook her head and denied him anyway. ‘Girls that age are at the mercy of hormones just as boys are and they fixate on the nearest object. Their fixating on you was probably more a matter of locality than your attractiveness.’

He grinned wolfishly. ‘So if it wasn’t me your hormones fixed on, then who?’

‘I didn’t have the time.’

‘Everybody has the time.’ He moved closer as his voice dropped to an intimate whisper. ‘Who did you used to dream of?’

‘No one.’

‘So rebellious on the outside, such a square inside.’ He shook his head.

Mya gritted her teeth.

‘No wonder you erupted with one touch—you’ve been repressed too long.’

Mya couldn’t answer because that was actually true. She’d been without too long; that was the reason she’d inhaled his touch like an attention-starved animal.

‘Did you wish I’d said yes to Lauren and taken you to the ball? Is that why you’re trying to cut me down now? Did I burst your love-struck teen bubble?’

He was so close to the mark it was mortifying. But she’d never, ever admit it. ‘I’m sure you’ve burst many poor girls’ bubbles, but you never burst mine.’ Mya willed a languid tone. ‘Fact is I’ve always seen through your charm to what you really are.’

‘And what am I?’

‘Selfish, spoilt, arrogant. Insufferable.’

‘Is that all?’ He paused a moment. ‘You don’t want to add some more about how unattractive you find me?’

Very funny. ‘You’re so up yourself it’s unbelievable.’

‘But you still want me.’ He breathed