One Night: Sensual Bargains. Maureen Child

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      Yes, why? My body echoed. Swallowing, I looked at the floor. “I don’t know.”

      “It’s true what they say,” he said harshly. “The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.”

      “Really?” I looked at him steadily. “And have all the women you’ve slept with burned the image of her from your brain—the woman you loved? The woman you almost died for?”

      His lips curled, and a low growl came from the back of his throat. “Don’t.”

      “Love doesn’t just disappear. You know that as well I do.”

      “It can. It has. And you’re stupid to let it do otherwise.” Holding the towel around his hips with one hand, he rose to his feet. His eyes narrowed as he went on the attack. “How does it feel, knowing that your stepsister has everything—the career you want, the man you love?” He tilted his head. “And he probably wanted her from the beginning. He was likely using you, to get to her....”

      “Shut up!”

      “I feel sorry for you. How it must hurt to know they’ll never be punished for hurting you. That while you suffer, they’re making love in oblivious joy.” He snorted, his lip curling. “You’re so meaningless, they’ve forgotten you even exist.”

      His face was close to mine, his expression cruel. My heart pounded with grief and pain. Then looking at him, I suddenly understood.

      “You’re not talking about me,” I breathed. “You’re talking about yourself.”

      The air between us was suddenly cold in a way that had nothing to do with the wintery bluster rattling the leaded windows, and the weak afternoon sun falling behind the bare black trees. His lip curled. He turned away.

      “We’re done.”

      “No.” Reckless of the danger, I grabbed his arm. “I’m trying to make you better,” I said in a small voice. “How can I, if I don’t understand the depths of your injury?”

      Edward looked at me, his jaw tight. “You can see it. You’ve touched it with your hands.”

      “Some wounds can’t be seen or touched,” I whispered. I took a deep breath. “Some go deeper. Let me help you, Edward,” I said pleadingly. “Tell me what you need.”

      His dark blue eyes stared down at me, haunted. Then they turned cold and cruel as the Arctic. Still holding the towel loosely over his hips with one hand, he wrapped the other around the back of my head.

      “Here’s how you can help me,” he said huskily. “Here’s what I need.”

      And he pulled me against him in a hard, hungry kiss.

      I didn’t have time to resist, or think; my body tightened, then melted against his. Edward’s lips were like silk, hot and fiery with need, his tongue brushing against mine. He held me against him, towering over me, strong and powerful and nearly naked.

      Then his towel fell to the floor, and there was no nearly about it.

      I was wearing a zip-up cotton hoodie, a T-shirt and knit workout pants, as always. But his skin scorched right through my clothes.

      His hand moved slowly down my back, as the other cradled the back of my head, his fingers moving through my hair. I felt a whoosh and realized he’d pulled out my ponytail. My hair tumbled down my shoulders. He murmured words against my lips, his voice low, almost a growl.

      “I want you, Diana,” he breathed, and claimed my lips savagely.

      I’d never been kissed like this before. The pallid, tentative kisses of a brief college boyfriend had left me cold. Jason’s kisses, as I said, were pleasant, nothing more. This?

      This was like fire.

      Edward St. Cyr wanted my body. Not my soul. Not my heart. There was no respect in his embrace, no concern for my feelings. There was no emotion at all—just physical need and reckless desire.

      But my hunger matched his. He made me forget everything—the past, my broken heart, my pain. When he kissed me, I almost forgot my name. He brought me to life, like a single hot ember from cold ash. He made my body blaze like the sun.

      I gripped his bare shoulders with an answering fervor that belonged to some other bolder woman—someone fearless—and kissed him back. With everything I had.

      I heard his low hiss of breath, then a rising growl at the back of his throat as he pulled me tighter against his naked body. His hands ran over me possessively. He kissed my lips hard enough to bruise, then nibbled my lower lip. He flicked his hot tongue in each corner of my mouth before he slowly moved down, kissing my chin. Kissing my neck.

      My head fell back, my hair tumbling down my shoulders. The cottage seemed to spin around me, as if I were at the center of a tornado. My skin felt hot, burning like the desert. I squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn’t open my eyes. If I did, I’d see Edward St. Cyr—my handsome, arrogant boss—kissing down my neck to my chest. If I saw that, I was afraid my mind would explode—along with my body....

      His hands brushed roughly over my breasts, over hard, aching nipples. He cupped them over my thin cotton shirt and bra, stroking the sensitive tips with his fingers. My breathing became ragged.

      “Take it off,” he murmured in my ear, and I felt the flick of his tongue against my ear. Prickles of desire, flashing cold then hot, raced up and down my body. Leaning forward to kiss me, he whispered, “Take it all off.”

      His hands were insistent against my naked belly as he reached beneath my T-shirt. He reached higher still, toward my thin cotton bra that barely seemed to contain my breasts, which felt strangely tight and heavy, heaving with every gasp of breath. He kissed my lips hard, filling my mouth with his tongue, as he reached to take a breast in his hand. He squeezed an aching nipple.

      Sensation ripped through me, and I gasped, gripping his bare shoulders. Electricity coursed through my veins, and blind raging need that frightened me with its intensity.

      “I’ll help you,” he whispered, and pulling on my sweatshirt, he started to push me down, back onto the massage table.

      Abruptly, my eyes flew open.

      I realized he intended to take me right here. In the gardener’s cottage, surrounded by gym equipment and free weights. Against the massage table. He would ruthlessly help himself to my virginity without any more thought than that he had a hard-on, and I was conveniently available to slake it.

      He didn’t want me. He wanted a woman. He intended to make use of me, in the same way I’d scarfed a bag of chips, the times I’d come home from work too starving to wait for a proper meal.

      When Edward had kissed me so passionately, when I’d felt his naked body hard and powerful against mine, I’d been overwhelmed with the intensity of sensation. I’d been lost in fantasy and need.

      In another moment, I would have let him rip off all my clothes, or—if that was too much trouble—simply pull down my stretchy yoga pants and thrust inside me, like an animal grunting as he took his pleasure, until he left me thirty seconds later, sticky and used upon the table.

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