"What do you want, Regan?"
Now she recognized him. It took only that sharp, impatient tone to bring him back. And to make her yearn. "I want you to leave me alone."
He said nothing at all, just stepped out of her way.
Once more she picked up her purse. Once more she set it down again. "That's not true." The hell with her pride, with sense, even with her heart. It couldn't be any more battered than it already was.
"You'd never have made it to the door," he said quietly. "You probably knew that."
"I don't know anything except I'm tired of fighting with you."
"I'm not fighting. I'm waiting."
She nodded, sure she understood. If it was all he was willing to give her now, she would accept that. And she would make it enough. She stepped out of her shoes, unbuttoned her blazer.
"What are you doing?"
"Answering your ultimatum of last week." She tossed the blazer on the chair and unbuttoned her blouse. "You said take it or leave it. I'm taking it."
Chapter 11
It was a curve he hadn't been expecting. By the time he could speak, she was wearing nothing but two scraps of black silk. And all the blood had drained out of his head.
"Just like that?"
"It was always just like that, wasn't it, Rafe? Chemistry, pure and simple?"
He'd want her, she promised herself. By God, when she was done with him, he'd never stop wanting her. Keeping her eyes locked on his, she walked slowly toward him.
"Take it or leave it, MacKade." She put her hands on his shirt and stunned them both by ripping it open and sending buttons flying. "Because I'm about to take you."
Her mouth was fire on his, burning, flashing, shooting dozens of wild blazes into him. Rocked to the core, he gripped her hips, fingers digging through silk to flesh.
"Put your hands on me." She sank her teeth into his shoulder. "I want your hands on me." Hers were dragging at his jeans, closing around him.
"Wait." But the bombs erupting inside him drowned out everything but pulsing, grappling need. With only his wounded heart as a pitiful weapon, he was defenseless against the spear thrust of desire. Against her.
He kicked himself free of clothes, lifted her off the floor.
He was deep inside her before they fell onto the bed.
It was all sweat and speed and blind sex. The hard slap of flesh against flesh, the raspy gasps of labored breathing. Teeth and nails and tangled tongues drove them both over the sumptuous mattress, rolling and riding.
It was a battle both had already surrendered to. Hot and hard and hurried, fast and frenzied and frantic, they pounded together. Wanting more, accepting less. The scent of roses choked the air with strong, sad perfume.
She straddled him, bowed back as his hands streaked over her. She wanted him to take her to that tenuous edge between pleasure and pain. There she would be alive, as she hadn't been since he'd turned from her.
She had to know that here, at least here, he was as helpless as she, as unable to resist, as pathetically needy. She could feel that need riot through him, taste it each time he dragged her mouth back to his with a ravenous hunger.
While her heart screamed at him to love her, just a little, her quivering body greedily devoured, fueling itself with whatever scraps he would give.
No room for pride, no time for tenderness.
When she sank toward him, limp as water, he rolled her ruthlessly onto her back and drove her on.
He couldn't breathe, didn't think, just battered himself into her. He had to fill her, to empty her, to claim her in the only way he knew she would accept. With a jerk of his head, he tossed the hair out of his eyes. It was vital that he see her, every flicker of shock and pleasure on her face, every tremble of her lips.
Love for her swamped him. All but destroyed him.