She folded her arms, fingers plucking self-consciously at the cables knit into her sleeves. The thought of his laughing at her for being a virgin didn’t appeal, but she had to tell him. “Look, I’m not…what you think I am.”
“What I think,” he said, nudging aside a pile of tumbled clothing as he stepped closer, “is that you’re something Victor wanted.” He clasped her arms above her bent elbows, gently straining them backward so her breasts arched into his muscled chest.
She gasped, stiffening in shock, hands splaying over the ridges of his ribs, fingertips unconsciously moving to trace the powerful cage beneath warm fabric. Rivulets of heat poured through her taut abdomen to a place where need pooled, making her flesh tingle and ache to be touched. “Wh-what?”
“Victor couldn’t have you and that means I must. Do you have a passport?”
She couldn’t think when he touched her, but couldn’t draw away, trapped by his strength and her own weakness. But he was talking as if she were mere spoils of war.
“Did you travel with him?” he asked with exaggerated patience.
“I was supposed to, but he died before I went anywhere. Go back to that bit about why you…” She couldn’t bring herself to say “want” when it sounded as though the sexual attraction drowning her wasn’t affecting him. She shivered in a hot-cold shudder of uneasiness while blood rushed under her skin, flushing warmth into her chest, making her breasts feel swollen and sensitized. Her hips longed to press into his, seeking the hard length that had nudged her when they kissed.
He knew what he was doing to her. A smug gleam lit his narrowed eyes as his gaze dropped to her lips. He started to lower his head.
Jerking hers back, she gasped, “I haven’t agreed.” But did she really want to step onto the street at midnight with her meager possessions and become one of the homeless? Her few shallow friendships were all with people she worked with. They wouldn’t take her in for fear of losing their jobs. She didn’t have a cushion of savings, just a credit card she couldn’t pay off if she didn’t have an income.
The direness of her situation began to hit home. At least this afternoon she’d been sure she could find some kind of menial work, but not now. Any character reference out of the firm after today would be career-stoppingly negative. Flicking a look from his set jaw to his penetrating eyes, she whispered, “You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”
“I lost my redeeming qualities years ago,” he agreed, something dark flickering in his gaze. “Which means there’s no appealing to my better nature. Make this easy on both of us and give in, Clair.”
She was tempted to. She didn’t have anything to lose and no one to answer to while he was dangling—what? A night? A reprieve at any rate, one that advertised a fringe benefit of physical satiation she had never expected to want. The emptiness of a one-night stand was, well, empty enough to make her ache, but she wasn’t in the market for a real relationship, so…
“Why extend your takeover to include me?” she asked in a voice more husky than the disparagement she was aiming for. “Didn’t you get enough out of scooping up the firm from a dead man?”
“He was still alive when I started proceedings and no, I didn’t get anything near what I wanted. Don’t make out like you’re some kind of prey just because you’re used to being the predator. You get to keep the money,” he taunted softly.
“No matter what?” The jerky toss of her head was supposed to convey brash confidence. The question was real, though. She couldn’t help being seduced by the prospect of running the foundation her way, without needing approval on every detail. Without having to reveal that each of those details touched her personally and that was why she was fighting so hard for them. “I’m not into anything kinky,” she warned. “If you’re looking for someone to spank you, move along to the next girl in the secretarial pool.”
“I’m not the submissive in any relationship,” he assured her dryly. “I like straight sex and lots of it. I don’t hurt women, ever, if that’s what you’re dancing around asking. I might play with dominating one, controlling her…” He flexed his hands on her elbows, making her breasts press into his chest.