CHAPTER FIVE
JANE wanted to launch herself across the table and scratch his eyes out. She wanted to kick and bite and scream bitter invective, that would condemn him to everyone within hearing as a vile and despicable monster.
The only thing that stopped her was the certainty that that was how he expected her to react. His stillness gave him away; it was that particular straining stillness of a predator gathering himself for the kill.
She could feel him willing her to lose control. He wanted her to throw a screaming, hysterical fit, to create another humiliating public scene that would set the seal on her already soiled reputation.
‘What’s the matter, Jane?’ he goaded softly. ‘Isn’t it enough?’
They both knew it was too much—far too much. Jane would have been able to shrug off the obvious insult of a few dollars with a disdainful laugh, but this kind of serious money was enough to give anyone pause, let alone a woman who was drowning in debt. All she had to do was sacrifice her pride, her self-respect...
Never!
And he knew it! He knew that she would fling his degrading suggestion back in his teeth!
A dangerous cocktail of alcohol and drugs spiked with anger swirled stormily through Jane’s veins. Colour streaked along her cheekbones, adding a fiery animation to her features as she lifted her chin and stabbed him with a poison-tipped glare.
‘You think I’d fall for a con like this? What’s to stop you cancelling the cheque tomorrow—if you haven’t already?’
She might have known he would provide no such easy escape from temptation. ‘As you can see, it’s a bank cheque, not one of my own...it’s as good as cash in your hand.’
‘A great deal of cash for a single transaction.’ She was proud of the fact that her voice didn’t falter.
‘Don’t you consider yourself worth it?’ he asked silkily.
‘Every cent,’ she said, folding the cheque and meticulously creasing the edge before folding it again.
‘Consider it in the light of a retainer.’ His deep voice was taut with anticipation as his hooded eyes feasted on the jerky movements of her gloved fingers, waiting for her to contemptuously tear the folded square into tiny pieces. ‘Naturally I’ll expect to command your exclusive services. I have numerous overseas clients who like to be entertained in style while they’re in town, men who prefer a more intelligent, sophisticated companion than is usually supplied by the local escort agencies...’
Jane’s fingers tightened involuntarily on the cheque and she saw the infinitesimal muscular shift in Ryan’s body as he braced himself for an explosion.
Instead, she tapped the slim column of paper against her lips, then smiled sweetly as she trailed it down her throat and tucked it into the scooped neck of her dress, where it nestled securely in the lacy cleavage of her bra. Then she put her elbows on the table and leaned forward to enjoy the fruits of her pre-emptive strike, laughing huskily into the congealing triumph on Ryan Blair’s face.
‘Why, thank you, Ryan, the money will definitely come in handy...but I hope you don’t mind if I think over that exclusivity clause? I don’t like to close down my options before I thoroughly investigate the market.’
For a moment he didn’t move, then the full realisation that she was calling his cruel bluff detonated in his consciousness.
‘You don’t mean that,’ he said hoarsely, his eyes lowering to the spot where the cheque had disappeared.
‘Don’t I?’ She flipped her hair back over her shoulder with a carelessly provocative gesture, fired with a wild glee. He was about to find out that she could bluff as well as he—and better! ‘Why not? I’m desperate and, as you pointed out, desperate people take risks that they normally wouldn’t even consider taking...’
His black-browed scowl betrayed his thwarted frustration. Muscles flickered in his hard jaw and she could almost hear his teeth grinding. Oh, yes, revenge was indeed sweet! thought Jane dizzily. No wonder Ryan had pursued it with such relentless fervour...
‘What happened to the famed Sherwood pride?’ he sneered. ‘What would Daddy say if he knew his little girl was doing business on her back?’
Jane wondered why his insults persistently nagged on the paternal theme. Did he imagine he was trampling on sacred memories? She had no illusions about her father’s business morality—and, far from being his protected ‘little girl’, she had been toughened fast and early by his insensitivity and rigid expectations. He had seen nothing wrong with accepting dates on Jane’s behalf from men whom he shrewdly judged might be useful to him—which made Ryan’s choice of humiliation rather ironic.
Maybe his taunts were more revealing of the vulnerabilities in his own background!
‘I wonder what your father would say if he knew you’d turned into a pimp!’ she flashed back.
Dark colour flooded his hard face. ‘My father was killed twenty years ago,’ he grated.
Curious at the lingering intensity of grief in his voice, Jane felt a pang of shame. ‘I’m sorry...was it an accident?’
‘No.’ His denial held a wealth of repressed anger that sent a prickle down her spine.
‘He was murdered?’ She was jolted by the idea of anyone daring to deprive Ryan Blair of anything that was rightfully his. He would have been at a vulnerable age for a boy—just entering his teens. It was difficult to visualise him as a child but she imagined he had been aggressive even then, a dark, intense little boy with a fiercely possessive streak.
Jane’s hand crept unconsciously to her breast, flattening over the small, prickly piece of paper that now felt the size and weight of a boulder. ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated nervously as the silence stretched. ‘It must have been a difficult time for you...’
Ryan’s raw laugh of contempt made her regret her momentary display of compassion. Like her father, he obviously viewed it as a weakness to be turned against her.
‘Still, maybe it explains what a bastard you turned out to be,’ she rallied spitefully. ‘Your mother obviously couldn’t teach you any manners. I bet you were a hellion as a teenager.’
He bared his teeth. ‘I still am, sweetheart. And let’s leave my mother out of this...she’s no part of our fight.’
Fortunately by this time Jane was feeling no pain whatsoever, and she was able to ignore the pressure on her injury and bat her long, mascaraed eyelashes at him, her eyes bright with reckless exhilaration.
‘Are we fighting?’ she said with honeyed innocence. ‘I thought this was the way you always conducted your business...you know—threats, insults, physical maulings...’
His temper was momentarily leavened by a flicker of admiration at her sheer audacity.
‘You want to be mauled, sweetheart, you’re going the right way about it.’ He lifted her hand in a parody of politeness and took a stinging nip out of her wrist, just below the ruffled edge of her glove.
‘You just can’t bear to lose, can you?’ she hissed as a fierce tingle shot up her arm and radiated down over her breasts, drenching her with a hateful awareness. ‘And stop calling me sweetheart.’
‘Just getting you in the mood.’ His hard glance shafted over her shoulder. ‘Dan’s on his way back to the table and he’s the one who’ll be doing the mauling. I hope you’re ready to earn your money because I understand he prefers his sex rough... He may like you to be a lady at the table but it’s a slut he wants in bed.’
His bluff had failed, so now he was trying to frighten her into giving his ten thousand dollars back.
‘Better him than you,’ she jeered, hell-bent on making him suffer before she let him off the hook.
‘Then, I guess we have a deal.’
He picked up the room key and pressed it into her captive palm, folding her fingers slowly down over the rectangular piece of plastic, one by one, his blue eyes smouldering with deadly challenge.
‘So be it.’
Jane’s breath stopped in her throat as she realised that he wasn’t going to back down. He was daring her to go through with their devil’s bargain! He really didn’t care about the money...he was rich enough not to miss the odd ten thousand, and had already proved that he would go to extraordinary lengths to gather her totally under his power.
Her head whirled in confusion, one certainty forming in the increasingly foggy muddle of thoughts: he was never going to give up and go away. Maybe the only way to win against him was to let him have the revenge he craved. Maybe then he would leave her alone.
But Sherwoods never gave up! Her father might not have had any principles but Jane had created a set of her own that she had sworn to live by: her word was her bond, never cheat on a deal, never betray a friend. And this man—this man was the reason she hadn’t been able to live up to those high ideals. He had haunted her past and now here he was once again trying to seduce her into forgetting her principles, turning herself into a cheat and a liar. A coward.
‘Well, are we going to party, honey?’ Dan asked, his hand appearing over her shoulder to plonk his empty brandy-glass down on the table. He tilted the back of her chair with a suddenness that made her gasp and clutch the seat, and grinned teasingly down into her upturned face.
Jane glanced back at Ryan, but he had swivelled away to put his signature on the bill which had been presented on a silver tray, the slashing downward strokes of his pen almost penetrating the paper. His angry profile was bleak and unrelenting.
‘Sure...’ Her voice seemed to come from a long, long way away as she let Dan help her to her feet. Her brain felt oddly separated from her body and her feet seemed to float above the floor as she accompanied him out of the restaurant into the thickly carpeted foyer of the hotel, conscious of Ryan prowling silently on their heels. She could feel his brooding stare pressing on her rigid back like the barrel of a gun—cold, hard and lethally unforgiving.
An icy calm settled over her. Time seemed to stretch, acquiring a dreamlike unreality as they walked past the reception desk to the bank of lifts where the two men shook hands and exchanged final pleasantries. Ryan sounded smooth and unruffled, but when Dan noticed that the receptionist was idle, and told Jane to summon the lift while he scooted over to check his messages, she discovered otherwise. She found herself abruptly backed into the nearest pillar, corralled by a solid body and big hands planted flat against the marble on either side of her shoulders.
‘He’s old enough to be your father—doesn’t that even bother you?’ Jane could feel Ryan’s burning gaze raking her pale, averted face. If she moved she would have to touch him so she froze, barely breathing, hoping that passive resistance would serve where open confrontation had so miserably failed.
When she didn’t answer, his voice hardened sardonically. ‘The next customer mightn’t be so much to your taste. What happens then, Jane? You’re selling your right to say “no”. What happens if I offer your services to someone who makes your skin crawl? Will you close your eyes and think of the money while some sweating pig of a man grunts and heaves between your legs?’
Jane’s response to his lurid taunts was to retreat deep within herself, beyond the reach of his controlling fury.
His hands fell to his sides and he stepped back, as if suddenly contaminated by their closeness. ‘You know that if you do this there’ll be no going back,’ he warned harshly.
‘Thanks to you I have nothing to go back to,’ she pointed out, stepping around him to smile brittly at Dan, who returned just as the lift doors opened to disgorge a group of American tourists. She slid her arm through his and tugged him inside the vacant lift, not caring that her eagerness to get away from Ryan might be interpreted as something else.
Like a sleepwalker she accompanied Dan to room 703, handing him the key-card to unlock the door and watching him prowl around, twitching the curtains and switching on the radio, turning the lights on and off until he had created the effect he wanted. He left only a small, shaded lamp burning on the long, low, polished wood dresser, and Jane was glad of the near-darkness that shrouded the other side of the room where the big double bed loomed.
The room itself was luxurious, bland, anonymous... containing nothing to jar the senses or cling in the memory, and for that she was also grateful.
She put her black drawstring bag on the spindly table by the door, but even that movement took an effort. A stunned inertia weighted the limbs that had minutes ago been floating free of gravity, and rational thought eluded her.
She had made a deal...
The thought blazed through the fog in her brain as she let Dan take her into his arms. His hands felt dry and leathery on her skin as he tugged her face down to his. His cologne was sharp and unpleasantly astringent as it mixed with the strong aroma of alcohol on his breath She turned her head so that the lips that were about to fasten on her mouth crawled moistly down her cheek instead. She had to do this, she told herself desperately. It was a matter of honour. She had to do it to prove...to prove.
She couldn’t remember what she was supposed to be proving or to whom. The cloak of inertia began to slip. A vague sense of panic broke through the drug-induced lethargy and the blood thumped in her ears as she pushed frantically at Dan’s chest, conscious of the bull-like strength compressed into his stocky frame.
‘What? What’s the matter?’ Dan lifted his head, his brown eyes puzzled rather than annoyed, and Jane felt her brief burst of terror subside as he allowed her to ease away.
‘Uh, there’s someone at the door,’ she said shakily, having realised that the source of the thumping wasn’t inside her head.
Her knees almost crumbled in relief. Ryan! It had to be him! His conscience had got the better of him. In spite of his callous threats he hadn’t abandoned her to her just deserts. For that she was almost prepared to forgive him!
‘Oh, good, the champagne’s arrived!’ Dan crowed, opening the door and beckoning the hotel waiter inside. ‘I ordered it while I was down at the reception desk,’ he told Jane sheepishly. ‘Know how you girls like your bubbly...and flowers and chocolates—so I got some of them, too...’
Somewhere deep inside her she had been certain that Ryan would come. ‘I...I have to go...to the bathroom,’ she muttered from the depths of her shock, and dived through the door behind her, her hands scrabbling with the lock.
She braced herself over the marble basin, staring at her bloodless face in the mirror. Two hectic hot spots glowed on her cheekbones where Collette had applied blusher, and although her lipstick had completely worn off her lower lip was still red where she had been unconsciously worrying it with her teeth.
She looked down at her hands. Although there was no pain the left glove was beginning to strain at the seams. Soon her circulation might be affected. Better to take the gloves off now than have to have them cut off later...
She peeled back the tight satin casings, having to tug hard to free the puffy little finger of her left hand. She looked at the exposed damage with detachment, deciding that the mottled bruising wouldn’t be too obvious in the subdued lighting of the next room.
The next room, where champagne and Dan Miller waited...
In other circumstances she might actually have quite liked him, Jane thought woozily. Downstairs he had been boisterous and full of brash insensitivity, but in private the rough diamond had revealed himself as something of a closet romantic. No matter what Ryan had said, she didn’t believe that the older man would physically hurt her.
The knowledge gave her the courage to venture out, leaving the discarded gloves screwed up on the vanity unit.
She was grateful to discover that the curious waiter was gone, and accepted a brimming glass of champagne with fatalistic calm. No one was coming to rescue her. She would have to do it herself. Before, Dan had just been a cardboard cut-out figure in her consciousness, just a prop in her private battle with Ryan. Now he was all too real, a human being, someone who was gruffly generous and capable of being hurt...
It was all Ryan’s fault!
Jane drained her glass quickly and then sat down on the edge of the bed as she found her head spinning.
‘Dan...’ She had something important to tell him, she knew. Something very, very important...
‘Of course, my dear,’ he said with exaggerated courtesy, sloppily refilling her glass before she could tell him that that wasn’t what she wanted. She realised that he was none too steady on his feet, either. Although Ryan had ordered the wine that had been served with their dinner, he had drunk even more sparingly than Jane, and as a result it had been Dan who had ended up consuming most of the two bottles.
He staggered and she instinctively grabbed hold of the elbow of his jacket and pulled him safely down beside her, then bent to place her glass on the floor. The blood rushed to her head and the glass wobbled on the thick carpet, tipping over and sending ice-cold bubbles splashing over her feet. Jane squeaked, kicking off her dripping shoes, the flurry of her legs sending her toppling back on the bed, her dress riding up around her thighs.
Dan fell back beside her, the champagne bottle still clasped in his hand, and Jane let out another shriek as the golden liquid foamed out of the narrow neck onto his chest. He merely grinned at the sight of the fizzing cascade and she raised herself on her left elbow, righting the bottle and instinctively brushing at the huge wet patch that had appeared on his half-unbuttoned shirt.
‘Why don’t you just lick it off me, honey?’ he invited good-humouredly, his free hand sliding under her hip to roll her on top of him.
Engrossed in their damp tussle, neither of them heard anything, but suddenly the door to the room crashed open and, almost simultaneously, Jane felt herself plucked off the bed and set ungently on her feet.
‘Sorry, mate—change of plan.’
Ryan Blair reached down and hauled Dan up from the bed by his soggy shirt-front, plucking the champagne out of his hand as he marched him to the door.
When Dan spluttered a protest, Ryan bent to murmur something in his ear and the older man’s resistance collapsed like a pricked balloon. With a muttered goodbye in Jane’s vague direction he allowed himself to be bundled into the hall, hurrying off even before the door was kicked shut with a polished heel.
Jane stared at Ryan as he leaned back against the door, shooting the privacy bolt behind him with an ominous clunk. His pale jacket seemed to glow in the dimness, warning her of the volatile energy sheathed within its smooth contours.
‘Wh-what did you say to him?’ she demanded defensively. ‘And how did you get in?’
The door was still intact, so he couldn’t have broken it down, and she was horrified by the thought that someone from Housekeeping might have glimpsed her rolling around on the bed with Dan.
He chose to answer her second question first. He tossed something with a clatter onto the table beside her evening bag. ‘I booked the room, remember?’
A key. He had kept a key!
He folded his arms across his chest. ‘And I told Dan that I’d regretfully just found out that you were suffering an occupational disease in its most infectious phase...’
Jane flushed with humiliation. ‘Why, you—’
He kicked away from the door. ‘Be careful. Be very, very careful what you say, Jane. I’m not in the pleasantest of moods.’
She circled warily away from him. ‘You never are!’
Suddenly the mental fogginess was gone, her lethargy replaced with a raging restlessness, her body taut with a fierce readiness. Everything around her came into sharp focus, colours were more vivid, sounds more penetrating. She could even hear his breathing, quick and shallow, and the whispering rasp of his clothing against his skin as he moved. If she listened carefully enough, she believed she could hear the blood pulse in his veins. Certainly she could see it throbbing heavily in his temple as he prowled closer. The shadow on his jaw seemed darker, emphasising the image of almost overpowering masculinity.
She put her hands behind her, where he wouldn’t be able to see them shake.
‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ Her effort to sound strong and assertive came out like a sullen complaint.
He slid his jacket down his arms and threw it carelessly onto the floor. ‘Ungrateful bitch!’
Her flush deepened in the knowledge that his taunt was partly justified. But did he expect a meek ‘thank you’ for rescuing her from a predicament that was mostly of his making? She glared at him defiantly, and was immediately punished for her sin.
‘It occurred to me that I might have been a trifle hasty in employing you without any references. So I decided to conduct a personal evaluation of your services before I allowed others to avail themselves of your expertise...’
He deftly unknotted his tie and stripped it from under his collar with a slow hiss of silk that was a provocation in itself.
Jane was appalled by the little thrill of excitement that skittered along her exposed nerves.
‘You really were going to do it, weren’t you?’ he observed with a dangerous calm, dropping the tie on top of his crumpled jacket. ‘You were going to sleep with an old man for money.’
‘Dan isn’t old,’ she muttered distractedly as she watched him reach for his cuffs. His eyes narrowed and she added quickly, ‘Look, if you’re calling off the deal, that’s OK by me. You can have your damned money back.’
She fished in her cleavage with her good hand and to her horror came up empty. The cheque must have slipped to one side of her bra while she was trying to wrestle free of Dan.
‘It’s your money now,’ Ryan told her, sliding his gold cuff-links into his trouser pocket as he stepped across his discarded clothes.
Jane backed away, almost tearing the delicate Italian lace as she burrowed frantically deeper. With a silent sob of relief she finally extracted the warm, crumpled cheque.
‘Here, take it. I never meant to keep it, anyway,’ she said, holding it out as if it were a talisman that would ward off the dark demon of her wicked imagination.
‘Did you not?’ It was evident from the cynical curl of his mouth that he didn’t believe her. He ignored her outstretched hand, his smoky-eyed gaze roaming from her tense face to the ruffled halo of her hair, riding the waves of midnight silk down to the glittering cap-sleeve which sagged off her left shoulder, revealing the emerald-green strap of her bra.
‘No!’ Her sticky toes curled into the carpet at the expression on his face as he visually traced the lacy strap down over the creamy upper swell of her breast. The oxygen in the room seemed sharply depleted. Jane gulped a steadying breath, and hitched up her errant sleeve with the hand that held the cheque. ‘You know damned well I was just trying to pay you back for insulting me—’
‘I can think of a better way...’ he murmured, his gaze shifting to centre on the rapid movements of her breasts. The flashy little number she wore suddenly felt as if it were made of transparent shrink-wrap. Never had Jane been more conscious of her overblown ripeness!
Her nerve broke as his eyes lifted back up to hers and his hands moved slowly to the collar of his shirt.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she croaked as he undid the first button with unhurried fingers.
‘Exactly what you think I’m doing,’ he averred softly, moving down to the next button with the same tantalising deliberation, revealing a sliver of bare chest that was sculpted of pure muscle and covered with a fine dusting of dense black hair. ‘What you hoped I was going to do...’
Jane was belatedly aware of the hushed isolation of the sound-proofed room, the double-locked door barred by his solid bulk. Keeping her attention fixed on Ryan, she tried to edge to her right.
‘What I was hoping is that you were going to step aside so that I can leave—’ She broke off, diving for the bathroom, but he was primed for an evasive manoeuvre, faster as well as bigger, his strong hands catching Jane by the waist, reeling her inexorably in towards him as she dug her bare heels into the carpet.
‘Liar!’ he accused darkly. ‘This moment has been a long time coming, hasn’t it, Jane? Years, in fact...’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she panted, twisting in his grip, pushing at him with one fist, handicapped by her need to keep her left hand out of harm’s way.
‘The hell you don’t!’ Blue flame leapt in his eyes as he shifted his weight, lifting and swinging her around until her back hit the wall beside the elegant table, trapping her there with his hips while his hard hands slid down and curved over her flanks.
‘It’s been there between us right from the start. Unspoken, but always there—this hot, itchy feeling of mutual awareness...’
‘No!’ He was stirring up long buried feelings that he had no right to disinter. She lashed out with her bare feet—a mistake, since it enabled him to slip sideways between her scissoring legs and push up against the centre of her body. She twisted her torso, tossing her head wildly so that her hair lashed his face, catching in the slight roughness along his shadowed chin.
‘Yes! But we never allowed ourselves to scratch that particular itch, did we, Jane? We politely ignored it and that frustrated the hell out of you. You had the hots for your best friend’s fiancé and because you felt guilty about it you projected the blame back onto me. I was the villain for being the object of your desire, for stirring up feelings that you didn’t want to acknowledge...’
‘You flatter yourself!’ Jane choked, denying the shameful memory of her secret obsession. He couldn’t know; no one had known. He was only guessing...
He leaned into her, letting her feel the thick ridge between his thighs, electrifying her with the knowledge that he was as aroused as he was angry.
‘Do I? Is it flattery to feel yourself desired? Did you think I wouldn’t notice the way you vibrated like a tuning fork whenever I came into range, the way you tensed whenever we brushed against each other, the exaggerated lengths you went to to avoid being left alone with me, or spending time with Ava and me as a couple? Oh, yes, you wanted me back then, Jane...I could smell it on you... And you still do—that’s why you came here tonight flashing your long legs and big breasts in that cheap, sexy dress—’
A glorious rage ripped through her, tearing down the barriers which she had so meticulously built up against him, spilling out years of repressed passion and resentment.
‘You crude, egocentric boor—’ She lashed out, striking his iron shoulder with the edge of her fist, jarring her hand open so that the despised cheque dropped into the silk folds of his open shirt.
His face hardened with savage satisfaction at the betraying fierceness of her response. ‘Sex is crude. Crude and raw and earthy. Isn’t that how I make you feel?’ He looked down and scooped the creased piece of paper out of his shirt, slowly rubbing it over his mouth and nostrils. ‘Aah, yes...that’s just the way I remember it—the unique aroma of Jane Sherwood, the ripe scent of warm, succulent breasts...’
She was suspended in shock by the sheer primitiveness of his actions as Ryan inhaled deeply, his eyelids drooping over eyes that glowed with sensual appreciation. Her breasts began to tingle as if they were being expertly fondled, and a delicious heaviness condensed in her lower belly.
‘But I know you have an even headier feminine fragrance for me to breathe, don’t you, sweetheart...?’
Holding her hostage with his lambent gaze, he reached down, easing his hips briefly away from hers just long enough to slip his hand under the hem of her dress, boldly cupping the cheque between her legs. Jane cried out, her eyes flying wide as he spread his fingers, smoothing out the slick paper against the fragile barrier of sheer tights and thin panties. He began to move it delicately back and forth, setting up a tantalising friction that made her head swim and her loins ache with sweet, savage yearning.
Past and present flowed together in a confusion of images. This was Ryan ravaging her senses, sacking the secrets of her soul, plundering the treasures of her closely guarded heart...
‘Stop it!’ she groaned, her will to resist melting away like mist in the sun as her forbidden fantasies came to life.
His triumphant laugh acknowledged the feebleness of her protest. ‘Make me!’
He crushed her mouth beneath his, parting her lips and thrusting into her moist heat, his hand continuing to move between her thighs in a teasing rhythm that created a wave of exquisite sensation so intense that Jane was swept over the edge of sanity. Heat exploded throughout her body and she clutched at Ryan in a spasm of pleasure, the arm that had been pushing him away sliding around his neck, her back arching, her hips writhing uncontrollably.
Ryan lifted his head, drinking in her panting moans.
‘You’re wet for me already, aren’t you, sweetheart?’ he muttered hoarsely, scraping his fingernail along the centre of the dampened cheque, increasing the pressure of his fingers so that he could trace the length of the intimate feminine folds that were plumping out the paper. ‘Wet and wild to know what I’m going to feel like pushing up inside you...whether I’m going to be as hot and hard as I am in your fantasies...’
Jane shuddered, helpless to deny the clamouring needs of her body. Nothing in her limited sexual experience had prepared her for such a violent seduction of the senses, such a ruthless gratification of her desires.
‘Oh yes, baby, you’re ready for it. Let me show you how much...’ His fingers rotated knowingly against the tight bud of nerves that wept for release. Jane bit off a tortured gasp and his voice roughened against her throat. ‘No, you don’t have to hold anything back, not any more... That’s right, moan for me, Jane...let me hear how I make you feel...’
She lifted her hips to help him as he hooked his fingers into the sides of her tights and pushed them roughly down her legs, along with the flimsy emerald panties that matched her bra.
‘Get rid of them,’ he growled as the underwear caught around her ankles, and she obeyed, kicking them away along with the cheque that curled unnoticed amongst the tangle of nylon and lace. With a savage grunt of satisfaction he drove her back against the wall again, his tongue plunging deep into her mouth in a graphic imitation of the ultimate intimacy to come. His hips rolled against hers, the blunt outline of his manhood tormenting them both with the reminder that she was now nude under her skirt.
The dark bloom on his jaw rasped like fine sandpaper against her tender cheek as Ryan angled his head to delve once more into one moist crevice of her mouth, his hands raking up her sides to tug at the tiny cap-sleeves, pulling them down her arms until the overstretched fabric caught at her elbows.
With a last swirl of his tongue his lips broke away and he looked down at her breasts—lush, quivering mounds, almost overflowing the low-cut emerald bra.
His nostrils flared at the erotic scent and sight of her opulent curves. ‘I used to wonder why you smothered yourself in those boxy power-suits. Did you think they hid the fact you had large breasts? Believe me, all it did was make me fantasise about doing this...’
He dug his fingers into the outer edges of the lace cups and peeled her out of them like firm, ripe fruit, leaving the ruffled lace straps and underwiring to form a supporting frame for her swollen fullness. Her darkly engorged nipples jutted towards him, starkly prominent against the smooth milky-white flesh. He rubbed at them with his thumbs until they grew even darker and visibly throbbed, then he weighed her generous breasts in his palms, encircling them with his fingers and massaging them with a languid milking motion that drove her wild for more.
Her hand sank into the short, spiky softness of his hair, tugging pleadingly, and he responded instantly to the silent demand, lowering his head and using long, slow strokes of his tongue to lubricate the stiff pink peaks before taking them in his mouth, nipping and sucking with a greedy enjoyment that made her ache to give him equal pleasure. She struggled impatiently to free her trapped arms and he helped her, unclasping her bra and tossing it away as her dress fell to her waist. In some vague, still functioning part of her brain she knew she couldn’t manage his remaining shirt buttons one-handed, so she tore it open, uttering a husky laugh when she heard him curse.
She had never felt so free and unfettered. There was no burden of expectation hanging over her head, no pass or fail, no sense of responsibility for her reckless actions. All Ryan wanted from her was passion, and that she could provide in glorious abundance!
He shrugged out of the shirt, staring hungrily down at her enlarged breasts, still wet from his mouth, as they scraped against his bare torso. His magnificently taut chest was slick with sweat, and when she ran her hands over the velvety-soft mat of damp hair and touched the flat olive nipples Ryan’s fingers dug into her thighs, grinding her against his rigid shaft as the breath came tearing out of his lungs.
‘Do it! Use your tongue...suck me...I want to feel your mouth on me,’ he urged thickly, and she obeyed, discovering the true extent of her own power as his big body shuddered in her arms.
His flavour was salty, tangy, exotic, and the taste of pure, unadulterated male was like another high-potency drug injected directly into her frantically pumping heart. Desire ran thick and rich through her veins as he dragged her head back for another soul-wrenching kiss.
His hands began to move up her thighs, inching the hem of her dress up over her nakedness until he was cupping her bare bottom, kneading the firm rounded globes as they clenched with the frantic seeking motions of her hips. The slip and slide of the expensive fabric of his trousers against her burning core was exciting yet unbearably frustrating, and Jane whimpered, reaching blindly for his belt.
‘Wait!’ he bit out against her ear. He sank to his knees and she felt the heat of his breath hazing through the soft thicket at the apex of her thighs—and then his mouth, his tongue...and the world dissolved in a mist of thick, creamy delight. Only when he had driven her to the very brink of shivering ecstasy did he rise to his feet to kiss her again, blending the erotic flavours of male and female on her tongue. Her hands slipped from the burnished steel of his shoulders to the smooth suppleness of his strong back, loving the sleek striation of muscles, the straining tension rippling beneath his burning skin.
With a swift economy of movement he pulled her bunched dress up over her head and unclipped her ruffled bra. ‘Now...wrap your legs around me,’ he ordered, his voice shimmering with leashed sexual force.
He was going to take her right here, standing up! Stinging curiosity whipped her excitement to new heights and Jane stroked a thigh teasingly up his powerful flank before she hooked her knee over his hip-bone. His hands curved under her bottom and splayed along the back of her thighs, hitching her higher against him as she wrapped her other leg around his waist. He threw his head back, his spine arching to support her weight as he moved in quick, rapid thrusts against her.
His chest crushed her swollen breasts as he pushed her flat against the wall so that he could free one of his hands, but instead of dealing with his zip he dipped his finger into her moist heat and stroked the tiny hood that sheathed the secret pleasure centre of her female being. Splinters of exquisite sensation radiated out from his touch and she cried out, beating helplessly on his shoulders as she realised what was happening.
‘No, please—not like this—’ Not alone. She didn’t want to be alone. She wanted him to be part of her, filling her with his glorious strength, not dominating her with his superior self-control and leaving her feeling empty and incomplete.
‘Yes, like this...’ His mouth was hot on her throat as his ruthless finger brushed the tiny sheath again...back and forth, over and over, delicately spreading the pearly essence of her desire, knowing exactly where to touch and how to send the quicksilver thrills of liquid fire spilling into a raging torrent of uncontrollable bliss. She sobbed, the edges of her vision darkening as she hurtled helplessly into the unknown, towards some far-distant uncharted star, a powerful supernova that finally consumed her in a burst of brilliant light and radiant heat, leaving her weak and trembling with the rippling aftershocks of the violent implosion.
Giving her no time to recover, Ryan spun around, detaching her clinging arms and legs and tumbling her on her back across the shadowed foot of the bed. Her limp arms outflung on the royal blue bedspread, Jane lifted her head to watch with glazed eyes as he stripped off the rest of his clothes and felt in the pocket of his trousers for a condom, which he donned with a boldness that would have made her blush if she hadn’t been so fascinated by the fierce urgency of his movements.
Every part of him was constructed to the same, massive scale, Jane realised with a frisson of awe, instinctively drawing her legs together. He grabbed at her slender ankles, pulling them apart as he braced his knees against the edge of the bed.
‘Don’t worry, nature has taken care of our proportions. You’re a big girl, Jane...you’ll be able to take every inch of me,’ he promised in a dark throaty purr as his fingers tightened on her ankles and he lifted them, dragging her lush body towards him, his possessive gaze lowering to the dewy glistening on the layered petals of her femininity.
‘You’re so aroused that coming into you is going to be like gliding between hot satin sheets...sexy, smooth and deliciously slippery...’
He let her feet fall on either side of his thighs and knelt forward to brace himself above her supine body on bulging arms. Jane felt the tip of his jutting manhood brush against her stomach, and in her violently overstimulated state the fleeting caress, combined with the carnal frankness of his words, set off another series of small explosions inside her that obliterated the vague stirrings of caution and conscience. Her voluptuous body undulated shamelessly on the bed, a pale splash of rose-pink flesh against the sumptuous royal blue cover.
Her lips curved into pouting fullness as she looked dreamily up at the man who had caused her so much pain but was now promising her unlimited pleasure. And she believed him—just for this one night she could have it all... all her hurts healed, her fantasies realised and her lonely dreams fulfilled...
The sultry self-satisfaction in her seductive smile made Ryan stiffen, the fierce urgency of his expression hardening, a savage suspicion that he was being manipulated adding a dangerously predatory edge to his lust. He came down on top of her with all the finesse of an invading conqueror, carving a path deep inside her with a single surge of his powerful hips.
The physical discomfort was momentarily intense, swiftly superseded by the incredible sensation of herself stretching and then tightening around the aggressive invader, absorbing him impossibly deeper into her body in a series of fluttering internal contractions that made Jane sigh with contentment and Ryan utter a steamy curse. He buried his face in the hot curve of her throat, his hands contracting on her strong hips, forcing her buttocks deep into the mattress in an effort to keep her still, but she could no more control the instinctive rotation of her pelvis than she could the stars wheeling in the heavens.
An orgasm hit him almost immediately, a prolonged, wild, uninhibited eruption of pure energy that stunned Jane with its primitive violence. His muscles twisted and corded, locking and unlocking in pulsing spasms that sculpted his body into straining contortions as he bucked and shuddered, lashing himself into a frenzy in his mindless quest for climatic satisfaction. He reared up on both hands for one last, huge, hammering thrust, his head thrown back, his arched body utterly rigid, quivering like a tightly drawn bow until he let out a hoarse shout of scorching triumph and slumped down onto her heaving bosom.
Jane felt used and bruised and dazzled by his splendour. No other man had succeeded in making her feel so wildly desirable. She wasn’t the sort of woman who drove men crazy. She had only had one other lover in her life, and James had turned out to be a set-up of her father’s, more interested in grooming himself as a potential heir-in-law than satisfying her as a woman. For James, extended foreplay had been an irksome waste of time, and with his brisk efficiency he had ensured that Jane felt inadequate if she couldn’t keep up with him.
Ryan’s lax body eased off her, and Jane, suddenly self-conscious in her nudity, rolled away from him onto her side. His strong arm hooked around her waist, hauling her back against his sweaty chest as he mistook her movement for an attempt to leave.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he demanded, sinking his teeth deep into the rounded curve of her shoulder, his hand cupping one soft-tipped breast. ‘I haven’t finished with you yet...’
He tightened his arm, turning her onto her back, anchoring her there with one hairy leg crooked across her abdomen. ‘The room is booked for the whole night, my sweet little swindler. You’ve only just begun to earn your money...’