temper to match his, carrying her to unpredictable heights. Common sense couldn’t compete.
‘I planned nothing,’ she snapped. ‘But you’re so eager to think the worst of me that you twist everything.’
‘What do I need to twist? You’ve sent me one message throughout the evening and a different one now, and I guess I know why. This is how you operate, isn’t it? Teasing a man, hoping to drive him into a frenzy?’
Temper drove her to say defiantly, ‘What do you mean,
She made the words deliberately incendiary. It was madness to provoke him, but she was too angry to think straight.
‘Is that how you get your fun?’ he sneered. ‘How many men have you driven to the edge before you give yourself to them?’
There was a perverse pleasure in knowing that she’d confirmed his opinion of her. The madness that possessed her now drove her to needle him further.
‘I never give
‘You’re wrong,’ he murmured. ‘You’ll offer it to me, I promise you.’
‘No, you mean you’ll take it,’ she accused him.
‘I never do that. Any fool can take. The pleasure is when you offer-even against your own will. You’ll end by giving me everything I want, and begging me to take more.’
‘Try me.’
‘Is that a challenge? Because I’m going to accept it.’
Moving fast, he slipped his arm around her waist and tightened it so that she was held prisoner, her skin against his, the feel of his arousal between her legs, reminding her that this could only end one way.
She pressed her hands against his chest, trying to push him away, but the attempt was feeble. Her will was divided, and he must have known that, for he didn’t yield an inch.
‘Too late,’ he whispered. ‘You shouldn’t have dared me to try you if you didn’t mean it. Challenge given and accepted.’
Only a few moments ago fear had undermined her desire, but anger had mysteriously brought it flooding back, and now it was stronger than herself. Her breathing came heavily, so that her breasts with their peaked nipples rose and fell against him, telling him everything she would have gladly denied.
‘Why are you angry with me, Helena?’ he murmured. ‘We’re playing your game, your way, your rules.’
‘My rules,’ she managed to say. ‘Then I can change them whenever I like. You’ll never keep up with me.’
He was moving as he spoke, drawing closer to the bed. She braced herself, expecting him to toss her onto her back and hold her down. Instead he lay full length and pulled her on top of him in a way that took her by surprise, giving the illusion of freedom, but only the freedom to writhe against him.
‘What do the rules say now?’ he asked.
She answered him, not in words but by fastening her mouth over his. Now all thoughts of the role she was playing fell away and she was driven by blind instinct. He was a man with a demonic power to seduce a woman, and that power was enticing her along unfamiliar paths to a new destination. It might not be wise to follow the lure but she was beyond rational thought, obeying the demands of her body.
For so long she had fought those demands, pretended they no longer existed, fooled herself that they were conquered for ever. Now that delusion was crumbling in flames. She wanted this man and no other, wanted what he could do to her and for her, and she wouldn’t settle for less.
She moved a hand over him, reaching down until she could feel him, fierce and rock-hard between her fingers. There was might and power there, and the need to have him inside her was intolerable.
He touched her breast, pushing her slightly away so that he could see her face as though there was something he needed to know, then increasing the pressure until she was on her back.
As his knee came between hers, separating her legs, she had a last look at his face, and what she saw there surprised her. The hard look was gone, replaced by something that might almost have been confusion: no triumph, just a searching gaze as though he too was in an unknown land.
Then he was completely over her, urging her legs further apart until she could feel him seeking entry, finding her, driving into her with a ruthless power that sent her spinning into space. She groaned with the strangeness of it, but that was followed at once by the certainty that this was right. This had been inevitable since the dawn of time.
He was moving inside her, slowly, prolonging pleasure with infinite control, taking her deeply, then more deeply until there seemed no corner of her that he couldn’t claim. She was burning up, going out of her mind with pleasure so intense that it was unbearable.
She clasped her legs behind him, then her arms, taking him prisoner and crying out to him to make this last for ever. She had a terrible feeling that it would soon be over and she couldn’t bear that. She thrust herself back at him with all her strength, seeking more and then more, until the moment came and it was like annihilation.
She returned to the world to find that her heart was thundering wildly, and nothing was as it had been before. Nothing would ever be the same again.
She was lying on her back, one arm flung over her eyes, which she kept closed. She could sense Salvatore near her but for a while she needed to be alone with herself, free from his gaze that saw too much. What had happened inside her was as alarming as it had been glorious, and he was the last person in the world who could be allowed to suspect.
She took a few slow breaths to calm herself and slip into the character she wanted to present. Then she opened her eyes to find him sitting on the bed, watching her.
‘Well?’ he asked wryly. ‘Are you going to deny that I won?’
‘You won nothing,’ she said quickly. ‘In here-’ she tapped her breast ‘-nothing. Because there’s nothing there to win.’
He placed his hand over her breast where her heart was still pounding.
‘A machine,’ she told him defiantly. ‘Nothing else. Ever.’
‘That isn’t true,’ he said slowly. ‘Why are you pretending?’
‘I’m not pretending, Salvatore. A machine.’ She managed a little scornful laugh. ‘Don’t scowl. Think how useful a machine will be to you. No inconvenient emotions, no tears when it’s over, a woman who knows the rules and doesn’t ask for more. No different from a man, really.’
‘You’re already planning for the end?’ he queried lightly.
She shrugged. ‘Everything ends, although not too soon, I hope.’
He inclined his head. ‘You’re too kind.’
She yawned and stretched, the very picture of a woman luxuriating in sensual delight. ‘We have nothing to do but please ourselves.’
‘I take it you have no complaints?’
Her lips twitched. ‘None that I can think of. If I do, I’ll let you know.’
He laughed outright at that.
‘Perhaps I should be going now,’ he said. ‘I’d be reluctant to cause a scandal.’
He waited for her to ask him to stay, but she said nothing. Her eyes were blank and he realised, with a sense of shock, that she was simply waiting for him to leave.
He switched on a bedside light so that he could hunt for his discarded clothes, then dressed quickly, meaning to head out of the door, but at the last minute something held him back to ask in sudden concern, ‘Are you all right?’
The life returned to her eyes. ‘Never better,’ she assured him brightly. ‘But now I really must get some sleep. Close the door quietly.’
‘I will.’ But still he didn’t move. ‘Helena-’
She yawned. ‘Oh, dear, excuse me, I’m so sleepy.’
‘Goodnight,’ he said, and departed.
When he’d gone she didn’t move but lay staring at the ceiling trying to come to terms with what had happened. Her flesh was still thrumming with pleasure and satiation. Part of her ached to have him back, to pull him down into bed with her and let him bring her body the ecstasy that had come as a revelation.
