His Most Exquisite Conquest. Robyn Donald

So what excuse are you going to give me for virtually ripping off my shirt and then nearly driving me out of my mind with your wicked ways?’

      The dark intensity of his eyes was making her throb in every intimate part of her that he had made his own, which meant that her ‘wicked ways’, as he’d called them, still weren’t satisfied. Because she still craved him, and even more so as she remembered every tender caress of his skilled and wonderful hands and the burning heat of his mouth on the most secret places of her body.

      In a voice tremulous with desire she said, ‘I didn’t rip off your shirt.’ And because this whole scenario was too embarrassing for her she said, ‘I think I should go.’

      ‘Go?’ He frowned. ‘Go where? To the bathroom? Or home?’ he enquired flippantly.

      ‘Home, of course,’ she responded seriously. ‘It’s much too embarrassing to stay here now that Mitch knows who I am.’

      ‘Is that the only reason?’ he purred with sensuality curling his fantastic mouth again and, before she could answer, too ashamed to know how to respond, he said, ‘He’s expressly requested that you stay. So do I. In fact, I insist upon it.’

      ‘Insist?’ Rayne echoed with her rebellious nature surfacing through her unquenchable desire.

      ‘All right, then. I invite you to stay,’ he amended.

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Because I think you must be feeling a little overwrought and probably much too tired after … last night,’ he reminded her with his irises darkening, although he was still smiling, ‘to be in any fit state to go anywhere.’

      ‘I’m surprised, after all you called me yesterday—deceitful, lying, naïve—’ she took a warped pleasure in reminding him equally ‘—that you should even care.’

      ‘Of course I care.’

      A glimmer of something deep inside her responded too eagerly to that heavily breathed statement. A throwback to her teenage years. That was all it was, she told herself chaotically.

      ‘You’re under my roof,’ he went on, surprising her because she’d thought it was Mitch’s house. ‘I wouldn’t want to be responsible for driving you out.’

      ‘Your roof?’ she enquired obliquely, while reluctantly processing the fact of his merely feeling responsible for her.

      ‘Does that surprise you?’

      ‘No.’ Nothing about him surprised her.

      ‘My roof. My house …’ her breath caught sharply as the mattress suddenly depressed beneath his weight ‘… and my bed.’

      His voice was arousing in itself, even without the things he was saying, and she thought of those couple of lovelorn weeks she had spent in his office, listening to his voice from behind that glass partition, wondering what it would be like to hear it roughened by desire.

      ‘If Hélène’s getting breakfast, we don’t have time,’ she said breathlessly because he was already turning back the sheet, making her whole body scream in anticipation.

      He laughed softly. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, pressing his lips against her forehead, and his voice was so soft she had to close her eyes because she couldn’t deal with the depth of feeling it aroused in her, ‘I think we do.’