Slave to Love

‘I’m sorry,’ he said tightly, ‘for what happened at the hospital.’

‘I thought you said you weren’t going to apologise to me,’ she reminded him, her chin back up again, eyes coolly challenging.

‘Not for the Brunner thing,’ he agreed. ‘But I will for Lulu. You have to understand,’ he said heavily. ‘She’s so damned volatile—highly strung! And—’

And selfish, and spoiled, and possessed of a dangerous tongue, Roberta thought, but kept those thoughts to herself.

‘And she’d just suffered a terrible shock,’ he went on. ‘It made her feel frightened—insecure! So she said some very wild things to you that she quickly regretted later.’

‘Good,’ Roberta said. ‘I’m glad she realised her mistake.’ Or tactical error, to put it more honestly. Like Roberta, Lulu had obviously realised that her father was not so stupid as to believe those awful things she’d said.

‘For God’s sake!’ he rasped, seeing something in her face that must have let him know she was being sarcastic, even if her voice hadn’t shown it. ‘Her mother was ill—almost dying in front of her eyes!’ He gave her another frustrated shake. ‘Can’t you show a little compassi

on and feel something less than enmity towards her?’

Could she? Roberta wondered. Perhaps she could—if Lulu ever showed something less than enmity towards herself.

And that was like tossing your cap at rainbows, she mocked herself cynically.

‘Will you endorse my resignation,’ she parried, ‘if I do?’

‘No,’ he growled, ‘I will not.’ His mouth tightened at her continuing caustic manner. ‘But I’m damned well happy to do—this!’

He was so quick that she didn’t even see him move! But suddenly—as always!—she found herself back in his arms, with his mouth covering hers, and he was kissing her with a hunger that took every ounce of strength she had in her to fight.

‘Open your mouth,’ he commanded when she held her lips tightly shut. She shook her head, refusing to comply. ‘I can make you,’ he warned. ‘I only have to do this.’ And he bit sensuously down on her bottom lip, drawing the tender fullness into his mouth and sucking delicately on it. ‘Now the teeth,’ he instructed, when her mouth eventually parted on a wretched gasp. His tongue traced the clean white front of her tightly clenched teeth, sliding against the sensitive inner tissue of her mouth as it did so. ‘Give in, Roberta,’ he urged, when she began to tremble at the effort it cost her not to. ‘You know you want to.’

No, I don’t, she thought bleakly. But I can’t seem to help myself. And she felt a shudder of pleasure ripple through her as his hands ran caressingly down her sides to clasp her hips. That action forced her own hands to lift, to maintain her balance; her fingers clutched at the fine cotton of his shirt, then, because they couldn’t resist it, spread greedily over the hard-muscled warmth of the body beneath.

He groaned in pleasure at her touch, then moved against her—not aroused, but getting there. The heat coming from him and the pulsing rhythm worked like a drug on her own desire. On a soft, defeated sigh, her teeth parted—but just to punish him for doing this to her again she bit down hard on the tip of his tongue before surrendering completely.

Instead of protesting at her little bit of cannibalism he laughed, the sound husky with mocking triumph. ‘You little minx,’ he murmured, then, to pay her back, gripped the back of her neck and forced her head right back so that he could bear down on her mouth with an assault that drained her right through to her very core.

The phone on his desk began to ring. For a few hectic moments neither of them seemed to hear it. Then the sound impinged on Roberta’s mind and she dragged her mouth away from his.

‘Answer the phone,’ she whispered.

He ignored it. ‘You know, your eyes go the most incredible shade of green when you’re aroused,’ he remarked instead, keeping her face tipped up to him. ‘It’s a kind of ocean-green colour that makes me want to dive straight in.’

‘That’s corny,’ she derided, not in the least impressed. ‘Answer the phone.’ It was still ringing away persistently. ‘You’re better at that. You never know,’ she taunted provokingly, ‘it may be important—like Delia needing a bunch of grapes, or Lulu wanting to check you haven’t got a woman here.’

The hand at her neck tightened. His eyes—a dusky shade of slumberous grey when aroused—snapped into a gun-metal hardness. ‘For such a beautiful woman you have a vicious little tongue in your head!’ he said harshly.

‘Don’t I just,’ she agreed, and provoked him even further by pressing the said tongue out between falsely smiling teeth. Inviting him to bite back.

He might be able to beat her easily with his damned sex appeal, but it wasn’t all one-sided. Mac had never been able to resist her when she teased him like this.

He must have been thinking the same thing, because he suddenly relaxed again. ‘You know how to press all the right buttons, don’t you?’ he sighed, then swooped, covering that inviting bit of tongue with his at the same time as his mouth closed sensuously over her own.

The phone didn’t stop. But neither did the kiss. So both went on and on, one seeming to compete with the other until, on a frustrated growl, Mac gave up the battle and, still keeping a hold on her, took the few steps back to his desk to snatch up the receiver.

‘What?’ he barked.

Roberta smiled, and was glad it wasn’t her on the other end of the line.

‘Oh,’ he then said disconcertedly, ‘Jenson. Thanks for returning my call.’ He let go of Roberta to swing a hip onto the desk, giving her a chance to move a couple of desperately needed paces away. ‘No—no,’ he assured the caller. ‘You weren’t interrupting anything. Just a problem employee.’ His mocking eyes clashed with Roberta’s, then dipped lazily over her long, slender body. ‘I’ve thoroughly dealt with her now,’ he said.

Her green eyes flashed, his grey ones challenged. Whatever the man called Jenson was saying to him was doing nothing to intrude on an eye-to-eye battle that was so sexually rooted that Roberta could feel her senses responding like well-tuned chords to a musician’s hands.