His hand grazed down the line of her jaw. He eased the tips of his fingers across her throat, settled on the button at her collar. He slipped it loose, then moved with the lightest, most lethal touch to the next button. He slipped that too, feathering at the skin beneath.
His other hand slid around the nape of her neck and drew her to him.
She could not stop him. Could no more stop him than she could have stopped the ocean. Her body slackened against him. She had no strength, no will, no conscious thought.
His mouth closed over hers.
It was a deep, sensual kiss. He did not intend it to be otherwise. It was, after all, all he would have of her …
Kat was drowning. Drowning in the sea of sensation that had closed over her head, her mind—every particle of her being. The drowning went on and on and on, dissolving her, so that there was nothing left of her, only the incredible sensation exploding in her. From away, words formed …
So this is a kiss …
She had never been kissed before. Never allowed a man near her. Never.
And now …
Now she was being taken—her mouth by his—her senses overwhelmed, and she had never known that it was possible to feel like this, to feel such sensation … such incredible, intoxicating arousal, such melting of the flesh …
There was no more reality—only this. This endless, intoxicating sensuality.
And then his mouth was lifting from hers. She could only gaze mindlessly, dazed, into his eyes—those night-dark eyes. They flickered over her and she felt heat deep inside her. His hand still held her nape, and without its grip she would have swayed, collapsed, for there were no bones left in her body, no thoughts in her mind, n
o consciousness of anything other than this—this obliterating, consuming now that had taken her into a world she had never known existed.
He was looking down at her. His eyes were still veiled, unreadable.
Then he spoke.
‘That was good, Kat,’ he said. ‘Very—grateful…’ His voice was a drawl, like talons over hardest stone.
He dropped his hands from her and stepped back. She swayed, but he made no move to steady her. There was incomprehension in her face—more than incomprehension—and something about it fed his anger. She was trying to speak, he could see, but there was nothing he wanted to hear. Nothing he wanted from her—except what he could not have. What she had made impossible.
His eyes steeled. Time to finish this.
‘But, despite your spectacular body, Kat, and your eagerness to bestow it upon me in gratitude for advancing your career—’ his gaze washed over her like acid ‘—I must disappoint your ambitions.’
She stared. She had been drowning—drowning deep, deep in an ocean of sensuality that she had never known existed, never dreamt existed. And now suddenly she had been beached, was gasping for air, cold sucking at her.
Oh, God, what had happened? What had happened? What did I let him do to me? How could I have—? How could I?
Her thoughts were rags, torn and shredded. What was he saying to her? She had crawled to him—abased herself to ask, beg for the job she had to have … But what had he done? What had she let him do? What was he saying …?
She fought for comprehension.
It came—like a killing blow.
‘I have no interest, Kat—’ his voice razored ‘—in bedding whores. And what else is a “grateful” woman offering her body than a whore?’
Time stopped. Rushed up from the past, searing across her brain. Words were spearing into her—bald, typed notes, impinging themselves on her retinas.
… known to work as a prostitute …
The pit beneath her feet opened. Yawned like the mouth of hell to swallow her up, take her to that place of damnation which had swallowed up her mother, and her mother’s mother.
But it would never, never swallow her!
She could feel the rage. Feel the fury. Boiling up in her. Boiling over.