James scanned the kitchen with his gaze. The kettle was stone-cold and there were no crumbs or used plates or discarded apple cores or milk cartons. He turned off the light and went further along the passage to the ballroom. The door was open enough for the moonlight to spill along the floor in a long silver beam.
The piano was a dark hulk in front of the windows, and beside it stood Aiesha with her back to the room, dressed in a silky ivory-coloured wrap that gave her the appearance of a ghost.
Knowing all too well the danger of sneaking up on her, James rapped his knuckles lightly against the door. ‘Aiesha?’
She must have known he was there even before he knocked for there was nothing hurried or startled about her movements as she turned to look at him. It was difficult to read her expression, but with the moonlight silhouetting her slim body from behind he could see she was completely naked beneath the wrap.
‘What are you doing down here all by yourself?’ he said.
‘Couldn’t sleep.’
‘Why didn’t you wake me?’
She stepped out of the shadows, her eyebrows drawn together and her voice sharp with an edge of irritation to it. ‘To do what? Make me a milky drink? Tell me a bedtime story?’ She curled her lip and added in a mutter, ‘Like that’s ever happened before.’
James frowned. ‘Sweetheart, what’s going on?’
Her brows shot up mockingly. ‘Sweetheart? Isn’t that taking this crazy charade a little too far?’
He came over to where she was standing so stiffly, so guardedly. ‘What’s the matter?’
A mask slipped down over her features. ‘Nothing.’
‘OK...so help me out here,’ he said. ‘Last time I looked, you were curled up in my arms and drifting off to sleep. Now it looks like you want to punch my lights out. Can you fill in the bits I’ve missed?’
Her eyes had that hard, streetwise sheen to them. ‘Look, I don’t mind sleeping with you, but I’m not sleeping with you, OK?’
‘Want to run that by me one more time?’
‘I’m not sharing a bed with you. It’s too...intimate.’
James gave a wry laugh. ‘And what we did a couple of hours ago wasn’t?’
Two spots of colour rose high on her cheekbones. ‘It was just sex.’
‘What is it about being intimate that you find so terrifying?’
A frown of irritation puckered her forehead as she glared at him again. ‘Why are you asking me these stupid questions?’
‘I want to understand you.’
‘And here I was thinking you only wanted me for my body.’
‘I imagine most men do, but I like to think I’m a little less shallow than that.’
Her chin came up. Her eyes glinted. Challenging him. ‘Well, guess what, sweetheart? My body is all that’s on offer. Take it or leave it.’
James wanted to call her bluff. His mind told him to walk away. But his body craved her. Ached for her. Throbbed with a bone-deep longing that had not been assuaged by sleeping with her. Instead it fed his craving of her like an addict taking a hit. Desire was something he controlled, channelled.
But not with her.
He couldn’t control it. He couldn’t redirect it or tame it. It roared in his blood with the force of a tornado. ‘Come here.’
Her chin went higher, those smoky grey eyes glittering with sensual heat. ‘Why don’t you come here?’
His groin pulsed with anticipation. ‘I asked first.’
She tossed her hair back over her shoulders, the movement loosening her wrap so it revealed half of her left breast. ‘You didn’t ask,’ she said. ‘You commanded.’
‘So?’
‘So ask nicely.’
James was so hard he seriously wondered if he could even take a step. ‘You want me to beg?’
Her lips curved upwards in a sexy half smile as she sauntered over to him, her wrap falling away from her to land in a puddle of silk on the floor. ‘Would you?’
‘I think you know me better than that.’
He sucked in a breath as she trailed a fingertip down the open V of his bathrobe. She got to his navel, circling it ever so slowly, her eyes locked on his. ‘Want me to go lower?’ she asked.
‘How low are you prepared to go?’
Her naughty-girl smile made his insides quake with lust. Her touch was like a spreading fire. His heart pounded with excitement as she slithered down his body to drop to her knees in front of him. ‘This low enough for you?’ Her warm breath danced over his rigid flesh. Teasing him. Torturing him with the promise of her erotic possession.
He was swaying on his feet, struggling to keep himself steady as her mouth hovered so tantalisingly close. ‘Wait. I need to get a condom.’ He fished in his bathrobe pocket and handed it to her. ‘Want to do the honours?’