Sweet Vixen

His eyes had flickered at the mention of Roy. 'Oh, I agree he's good. It's a superb piece of work. So good that one can forgive it its sheer dishonesty.'

'Dishonesty!' She felt a prick of anger on Roy's behalf. 'That's unfair. Roy has great integrity, he's the most decent and honest man I know!'

'Then I pity him!' Sarah shrank from the full force of his contempt, shocked by its intensity, beginning to appreci­ate the magnitude of the task she had set herself. He turned and she thought, with a mixture of fear and relief that he was going to walk out. But, ominously, he merely closed the door, then leaned his long length against it while his narrowed eyes crawled slowly over her half­naked body. 'Does he still see you as the innocent temp­tress? I doubt it, after last night. No one's that gullible.'

'Will you pass me the wrap, please?' Sarah asked, waveringly.

'You're not showing me anything I haven't already seen.' Carelessly he unhooked the wrap and tossed it across, watching cynically as she put it on and stood up to tighten the belt, facing him proudly. 'Less, thanks to your . . . shall we say, enthusiasm? And your. . . friend’s artistic skill. Next time, though, he should paint you as you are. A temptress indeed, but with all the innocence of a whore!'

'I thought post-mortems bored you,' Sarah said, stun­ned by his crudity but still grimly holding on to her composure.

'I thought that would hit home,' he told her, betraying pleasure. 'Incredible, isn't it, that any man could resist your injured innocent act?'

'I hope you enjoyed your petty revenge,' Sarah threw at him fiercely. 'So much for your much-vaunted sense of justice! You won't listen to the facts because you don't want to hear anything that will challenge your infallible assumptions!'

'The operative word being facts, not your brand of pretty fiction,' he said with bit

ter clarity. 'There's nothing wrong with a whore, as long as she's an honest whore.'

'You have a twisted sense of morality,' Sarah choked in wrathful indignation. 'No wonder you confuse fact and fiction. You were taking me to bed last night, not to church, and it's only your pride and vanity that got hurt. You're not going to save face by indulging in cheap name-calling—'

Max elbowed himself off the door with a suddenness that had Sarah clutching the chair between them.

'Cheap?' he snarled. 'Why not? You were mine for the price of a meal!'

'And you were mine for nothing,' Sarah flung back. 'What does that make you?'

His nostrils thinned. 'At least I offer exclusivity.'

Sarah laughed; a shrill, brittle sound. 'Of what? Club membership? Mistresses and ex-mistresses of Max Wilde? I thought that was open to the public.'

'Jealous?' he thrust, harshly mocking, and something inside Sarah writhed briefly and died.

'Of you? Don't be ridiculous!' she spat, tempted to throw the chair full in his sneering face. 'I was^ just pointing out that you're the last one to preach morals to me. Maybe you're too corrupt to be able to understand that a man and woman can have a platonic relationship like Roy and I. Well, I don't give a damn what you think anymore. Roy and I have known each other for seven years. He was a good friend of Simon's, and of mine—'

'I'll bet he was,' Max inserted silkily. 'And with whom was he the more intimate—your husband ... or you?'

'You . . . vile . . . hypocritical swine,' Sarah gasped out, flushed and trembling so hard she had to grip the back of the chair. Leaning into it frantically, eyes glittering bril­liantly, she was unaware of how excited and exciting she looked in the grip of raging temper. 'How dare you make such foul, such rotten accusations. You know nothing. You're a bigot and a coward—you're afraid to listen, to admit any weakness or wrong, because that would mean you'd have to come down off your self-created Olympus and let the rest of us see how fallible, how human you are! You're not a god, Max—I don't think you know what you are!'

The narrow face darkened and Max made an indistinct sound in his throat, hands curling slowly into fists at his sides, balls of bone and muscle. He took a step towards her, as if he couldn't help himself and Sarah recoiled,' letting the chair fall with a sharp clatter. He wouldn't resort to physical violence would he?

'It won't work, Sarah, not this time,' he told her through his teeth. 'I know you now for what you are: a treacherous, amoral little slut!' His mouth twisted in contempt, his voice filled with loathing. 'You're clever, I'll give you that—a woman has to be to fool me. But I never make the same mistake twice.' He took on a cruel mimic­ry: '/ don't remember ever feeling like this. You must have a singularly short memory!'

Each word was a drop of acid etching itself into her fiery brain. Sarah tugged the thin wrap tighter, as if it could protect her from the merciless onslaught. The whole situation had exploded in her face and she was too hurt now to retract anything, or even want to. Perhaps she had provoked him, but only because she refused to be ground into the dirt as a result of his intransigence.

As she hugged herself, drawing the slippery material taut over her breasts, she saw the smouldering eyes drop by the merest flicker of a lash and fix themselves again on her face with a strained intensity. And suddenly it hit her why he was so bitterly contemptuous and how she could exact bitter payment for all his insults.

She rubbed her crossed hands up and down her arms, feigning weariness, watching Max's reaction through lowered lashes, noting the way his eyes unwillingly fol­lowed the slow, massaging movements. Yes. She let one hand drop and moved the other casually up to slide inside the neckline of the wrap. A muscle jumped in the lean jaw as she shifted the material slightly so that he had a brief glimpse of golden bare skin to her waist, the more enticing because it was now supposedly concealed.

'What's the matter, Max?' she asked huskily. 'Does my body bother you?' His eyes jerked back to her face, shocked, and she gave him a slow smile. 'Not bored, Max. Never bored. My body fascinates you, doesn't it . . . my body, my hair. Did you dream about it last night? What you missed, what you wanted . . .'

Dark blood ran up under the taut skin of his face and Sarah felt a hot, hard thump of victory in her chest. 'Poor Max,' she simpered. 'I turned you on and you don't know how to turn yourself off. . .'

He cracked wide open then, in a way that appalled her even as it sent adrenalin racing through her veins. The hard, arrogant lines of his face blurred with rage, the eyes insensate and she panicked immediately, realising that in driving him over the edge she too had lost what little control she had.

He came towards her, off the balls of his feet, and she held up a feeble hand to ward him off.

'No, Max—I didn't mean—'