Read Online Curve Struck (A Celebrity Stepbrother Romance) by Christa Wick - Free Book Online

attendant.
    "Yes," he said and tucked the stylus behind his ear, confirming her suspicion he had no intent of returning it to her any time soon.
    "Why?"
    Her brain couldn't come up with a reason. A very specific reason would have occurred to her if he'd been giving a ride to Cammie, who was curvy and thick but not nearly as big as Melanie, or to one of the starlets on set who were always trying to capture his attention. But she wasn't one of them and there was no reason for him to send the attendant away for the duration of the flight.
    "Why?" she repeated.
    "We have some things to discuss."
    His face was as cryptic as his answer. The gray gaze was smudged with an uncharacteristic softness, but his mouth was a thin, stern line.
    "About our parents?"
    With the movie and its promo done, they had nothing else connecting them.
    He chuckled grimly. "You mean Sir Roger Ivory and your mother? I don't plan on ever thinking of them again."
    His shoulders lifted and his mouth pinched forward. "No offense to your mother. She seems perfectly fine."
    Melanie could have dwelled on the lukewarm compliment for hours, but she didn't.
    "Seriously, if it's what I said about Wikipedia and TMZ, I was just trying to figure out why you were looking at me like that."
    She shifted in her seat, his body too close to let her turn and stare him directly in the eye, but she tried to. "I want you to know I would never, ever, ever do that."
    Declan said nothing for a few seconds. His lips twisted in strange contortions, her stomach knotting in equal turns as worry built inside her over the reply he was clearly holding back.
    "Looking at you like what?" he asked at last.
    She blinked as she remembered the look. He had seemed so remote and she had felt so small, despised even.
    "I really don't want to say it, please."
    She drew her bottom lip in, chewing at it mercilessly to keep from blurting out an answer.
    Or a question -- like what had she done that truly deserved his disdain?
    All through Declan's short interrogation of her, Melanie had kept her hands wrapped around her iPad. He took it from her and gently slid it into the bag, followed by the stylus he had tucked behind his ear.
    Reaching up, he placed the pad of his index finger against her bottom lip and slowly pulled it free from her bite.
    "You do that during fittings sometimes," he murmured.
    Her first reaction was surprise that he had ever looked at what she was doing. But then it occurred to her that, of course, he had to look occasionally. He was an actor, a good one, maybe even a great one if she could peel her eyes and thoughts away from his body long enough to study his application of craft. And paying attention to what people did and how they did it was part of being a good actor.
    "You're doing it now because I upset you," he said, the contemplative tone almost soothing to her. "But why do it at fittings?"
    That was another question she didn't want to answer. Declan was the only person she had to help dress who made her bite at her lip. All the times before that moment on the plane could be characterized as unsuccessful attempts to quell a building hunger for the man sitting next to her.
    Shaking her head, Melanie refused to answer.
    "If it's not about Roger or my mother or my telling anyone, what do we have to talk about?"
    Twisting against the loveseat, Declan planted one arm behind Melanie and stared intently at her, his head cocked to the side. His appraising gaze didn't remain in one location and only occasionally lingered -- stopping once at the quiver of the bottom lip she was no longer biting, again at the curve of her neck, then a little lower when he reached the breasts that had started to swell, their two hard tips aching for his notice.
    She tried to pull back, but he'd left her nowhere to go. He had that look on his face, the one she'd seen so many times in the mirror during fittings and scene changes, that look of self love that she'd found so narcissistic -- like he was