Behind Closed Doors

her, his hips pulsing eagerly. His face was a taut questioning mask. She reached up and caressed his cheek, arching her back. Silently giving him leave.

He took her at her word. His control snapped, everything changed, and she was caught up in a hurricane. He shouted hoarsely as he drove into her. His slamming thrusts made her cry out, not in pain, but in savage exultation. Every part of her welcomed him, loving the slapping sounds of contact, the marvelous, sliding friction. It drove her crazy, tearing down her image of herself, releasing something deeper and fiercer, something heightened and exalted and savagely feminine.

He had lost his control and she was glad, triumphant She wanted to claw and bite him, to tear down his barriers and see him naked and helpless before her. She stared into his face and cried out with wild, exultant joy as he exploded and wild triumph triggered her own sweet, shimmering explosion.

When she opened her eyes, his face was hidden against her neck. She pulled at his hair, trying to make him look at her, but he resisted, shaking his head and pressing his face harder against her, panting.

She clasped her arms around his neck and melted into tears, but they were soft, rippling tears that cleansed and renewed her. She held onto him as the bright storm moved through her and subsided, leaving her clear and clean, like a fragrant, rain-washed sky. The feeling frightened her. It was dangerous to be this happy. Experience had taught her that it meant she had way too far to fall.

Seth looked up, alarm plain upon his face. She laughed through her tears, dashing them away with the back of her hand. “Don't worry,” she told him with a watery giggle. “I'm all right. More than all right. I'm just happy. This was wonderful. You 're wonderful.”

She was hoping that he would take her in his arms again, but he withdrew abruptly, climbing off the bed. Suddenly the air in the room felt unpleasantly chilly against her damp, flushed skin. He turned away, disposing of the condom. A vague, fearful feeling clutched at her midriff, blocking her tears at their source.

“What's the matter, Seth?” she asked.

He waited an agonizingly long time to reply, then turned to her.

“How do you let yourself go like that?” His voice was cool. Wondering.

She sat up, smoothing her hair away from her damp face, and smiled at him. “How could I not?”

“So you're like this every time, men? With everyone?”

The cold look in his eyes made her shiver, as if a cliff had appeared unexpectedly before her feet. “What do you mean, everyone?”

“Every time that Lazar sends you out to fuck one of his business associates,” he said.

Her insides turned to ice. She stared at him, half-hoping she had heard wrong, knowing she had not.

She swallowed around the jagged lump that had taken form in her throat. “You thought that I—that Victor—” Her voice trailed off, breath finished. She was unable to inhale and replenish it.

“I hope he pays you well,” he said. “You deserve it. You're amazing. I've never had sex like that in my life.”

She opened her mouth again, but nothing came out. She shook her head, wanting to cancel, to negate, to erase, the last ten seconds.

He just stared at her, eyes cold and unwavering. He believed it.

God, he had made love to her believing it.

No, not love. Not even sex. He had fucked her, believing it.

She shook her hair forward, hiding her breasts. Being naked in front of his cold gaze was unbearable. “God, Seth “ she whispered, “I'm a secretary, not a call girl.”

His expression did not change.

Raine scrambled off the bed and began searching for her scattered clothes. She yanked them on with cold, trembling fingers, not bothering to button her cuffs or to tuck in her tattered blouse. She shoved her bare feet into her pumps and lunged for the door.

He blocked her, trapping her between his powerful arms. “Wait,” he said flatly. “I'll get dressed and drive you home.”

She looked into Seth's dark eyes, inches from hers, and said, loud and clear, words she had never said aloud to anyone in her life.

“Fuck you.”

She shoved at his naked chest with all her strength, sending him stumbling back two steps. She wrenched the door open, and ran.

Chapter 7

The patron saint of humiliated lovers must have been watching over her. A cab from the airport was discharging its passengers outside the lobby as she tore through the lobby. She made her getaway before Seth could follow her downstairs and reduce her to a state of hysteria.

She was teetering on the verge of it now, using every trick she knew to stave it off. The grizzled old cabbie could tell. He kept glancing back in his rearview mirror, his eyes troubled behind his thick glasses.

“You all right, miss?”

“I'm fine, thanks.”

Her lips felt numb as they formed that terribly familiar phrase. She almost laughed, but choked it off. Laughter opened the floodgates. Then the tears would come, and then she would definitely lose it.

I'm fine, thanks. She'd been saying that for seventeen years while she was dying inside. She was not fine. She was worse than she'd ever been, which was saying a great deal. And this time it was all her fault.

What did she expect? She'd overcompensated, like always, and leaped into bed with a man without even having dinner with him, or even exchanging basic personal data. She didn't know where he grew up or what college he had attended, or even his phone number. She'd done a slutty thing. She had to deal with the consequences.

But she was so contracted with pain, she could barely breathe.

Think pirate queen, she reminded herself.

Like hell. The pirate queen would be sophisticated enough to use a man for sex without letting all her barriers crumble, even when her body was flying apart with pleasure. She would have had the presence of mind to say something besides that blunt, inelegant “fuck you.” Something that would've pierced him to the heart, or to the bone at least She doubted that the bastard had a heart

The storm was about to burst She bore down and counted the seconds it would take to reach someplace private to fall apart, an old trick from her school days. Eight, seven, as she paid the cabbie and bolted up the steps to her house. Six, five, and it was taking too many tries to get the key into the lock, the way her fingers shook. Four, the key finally entered and turned. Three, she shoved open the door. Two—

“Good evening, Raine “

She shrieked, and leaped back out the door.

Victor Lazar was lounging in the foyer, sipping a glass of whiskey. “I hope you’ll excuse me for helping myself to the bar. I'm familiar with the house, you see. I stocked the bar myself some months ago” he said.

“I see. It's, uh, fine,” she whispered.

Hah. There it was again. Miss Nicey Nice, terrified of offending anyone even if they were stepping on her face, was just fine.

Victor gave her an encouraging smile and gestured for her to come in. She took a step inside. She was poised to flee, adrenaline pumping, her brain churning out any number of probable reasons that he might be here, uninvited, in her foyer. None of them were good.

Dear God, don't let him come on to me, she thought wildly. Not that. No way. That was too much to ask. She would run, screaming; and if the dream came back, she would just beat her head against the wall of her padded cell until it extinguished itself in a bloody haze.

Anger at his presumption rose slowly up, like a bubble from the shadowy depths. She forced herself to stand