‘What...?’ She jolted upright, her heart pounding, coming to as she took in her surroundings and saw Alex bent over her, his dark face breathing fire. ‘What on earth do you want and what time is it?’
‘What time is it?’ He repeated her words in cold mockery as he stood upright, his eyes searing over her creamy full breasts, revealed clearly through the whisper-thin nightie she was wearing. ‘If you had been where you should be, next to me in full view of all my guests, you would know what damn time it was! Why did you disappear like that?’
‘Why did I...?’ She spluttered out of words as sheer unadulterated rage took her over, her anger making her quite unaware of the seductive figure she made as she sat amid the tumbled covers with her hair streaming across her shoulders and her violet eyes huge in her flushed face. ‘You dare to ask me that!’ She knelt up in her rage, her hand going out to strike the handsome face above her, but he caught her wrist in an iron grip as his eyes narrowed.
‘No, you don’t, angel-face.’ His grip tightened as she struggled until she gasped with pain. ‘And I repeat my question. Why did you leave the party like that without even telling me you were going? If nothing else it was the height of rudeness.’
She stared at him angrily without speaking. If he thought she was going to object verbally to him making a fool of himself with Susan he had another think coming. He could do what he liked with whom he liked but she was blowed if she was going to sit and watch like some pathetic little bimbo grateful for crumbs from the great man’s table.
‘Well?’ As his gaze lowered to her body she suddenly became aware of just how little she had on at the same time as she realised his breathing had thickened. ‘Are you going to answer me?’
She pulled the duvet up round her breasts with her free hand, glaring at him ferociously. ‘You’re the one who controls an empire,’ she spat furiously. ‘You figure it out.’
He held her glance tightly, speaking quietly now through clenched teeth. ‘You drive me to the limit, woman,’ he said thickly. ‘Right at this moment I want to take you until you’re crying out for more, until the things I do to you drive you crazy with desire and there is no one in your world except me.’
‘I’d hate you,’ she said bitterly, trying to wrestle her wrist free, and then froze as he laughed softly, his eyes glittering in the dim light.
‘You do anyway.’ His gaze lowered again to her body, the duvet
having slipped in her frantic struggles, and suddenly his arm swept round her waist as he pulled her close, his body falling against her on the softness of the bed.
She wanted to fight him and in those first few seconds she did, silently and with all her might, and then she became aware of the hard muscular thighs pressed close to hers and the trembling that caught hold of her limbs drove all the strength from her body.
He hadn’t kissed her until that point but now his lips fastened on hers and she felt as though every nerve-ending in her body had been sensitised into one glorious whole. As his hands stroked down her body, ruthlessly determined at first and then, as he sensed her compliance, dizzyingly, erotically soothing, she knew she was lost. She was enthralled by the sensations he invoked so easily, entranced by the sheer heady excitement that he wanted her, wanted her so badly that he was groaning her name against her hot flesh. She hadn’t expected it to feel so right.
She knew, as his body shuddered against her, that he was holding himself in an iron restraint as he coaxed her desire still further, and the more she responded, the more she gave of herself, the more unhurried and restrained he seemed to be, kissing her face, her throat, her breasts with soft, sensual, undemanding kisses that, even as they reassured, fired her to strain against him in an agony of need.
‘Do you understand now, Fabia?’ he whispered softly as he stroked her with long, sensitive movements that caused an exquisite pleasure to pulse in time with her heartbeat. ‘It could be so good, I can make you want me as much as I want you. All you have to do is let me...’ She could barely hear him, her senses disorientated and lost in an explosion of feeling, and as she sighed mindlessly his voice became more insistent.
‘Fabia? Listen to me. You have to want this in your mind as much as your body; I’m not settling for second-best. Do you hear me?’
‘Second-best...?’ As she pulled herself back into the cold light of reason it was to see his face, inches from her own, his dark gold eyes blazing with passion and... something else, something she couldn’t understand.
‘I’m me, Alexander Cade, I won’t be a substitute for anyone else, in bed or out of it.’ They were still entwined in each other’s arms and for a fleeting moment she wished he hadn’t spoken, wished his hands and mouth had continued to do their devastating work which would have ended in only one conclusion. And then she realised where she was, who she was and the fact that she was stark naked in his arms, her nightie having obviously been discarded some time along the way without her even being aware of it.
‘Do you care for me, even a little?’ As she tried to jerk herself out of his embrace he held her still tighter. ‘Do you?’
‘Let go of me.’ How could he ask her that? What sort of woman did he think she was? That she invited this from anyone? Of course she cared for him; she— The door in her mind slammed shut. He had got under her skin, that was all. That had to be all. ‘Please, Alex, let me go.’
He held her for one long moment more and then slid his feet over the side of the bed flinging the duvet over her nakedness as he did so, his face set in a mask of tight control although she noticed, with a small dart of surprise, that his hands were shaking as he stood up and moved across to the dressing-table, resting both hands on the smooth marble surface as he bent down with head lowered and legs apart. ‘That’s that, then.’ His voice was husky and deep. ‘Now I know where I stand.’ She couldn’t reply, she was beyond speech, her mind spiralling in such a whirlwind of confusion that it was a physical pain.
As he kept his head lowered she saw his hand move out to touch something on the dressing-table top and realised with a little dart of horror that she had left his present there the day before, unable to make up her mind whether to give it to him or not, unsure of how he would react.
He picked it up, reading the little card as he did so, and then turned to look at her, his eyes remote and unfathomable. ‘Do I take it this was meant for me, or is the Alex on the top of the card someone else?’
‘Of course it was meant for you,’ she said shakily. ‘I just changed my mind, that’s all.’
‘A woman’s prerogative.’ His eyes returned to the tiny package in his hands. ‘May I?’ She nodded helplessly, her face white.
As he opened the small box and held the tiny key-ring aloft the little mirror flashed in a ray of moonlight from the window and he remained perfectly still for a moment. ‘Thank you.’ He slipped the box into his pocket. ‘I shall treasure this, whatever the motive was in buying it.’
She stared at him, mesmerised by the compelling look on his face, a composite of pain, hunger, anger and... something else she couldn’t place. He turned and walked to the door, twisting on the threshold to glance across at her again, the strangeness still visible in his tight jaw and shadowed eyes. ‘And I do know, Fabia,’ he said quietly, his voice now devoid of all emotion.
‘You know?’ she whispered in bewilderment.
‘Who caught who.’ A tiny muscle flickered for a moment in the hard jaw. ‘But how was I to know how much it would hurt?’
As the door slammed behind him she shuddered for a second at the constrained savagery with which he had closed it, and then buried her head deep in the soft pillow as hot tears flooded her eyes.