Trish Morey - A Virgin For The Taking

‘No pardon necessary,’ she hissed back. ‘I wouldn’t expect you to believe anything, let alone the truth. You’ve shown a marked absence of that ability ever since you arrived back in Broome.’

‘And you’ve shown a remarkable inability to admit to the truth! Why do you pretend to be something you’re not? Why do you pretend not to understand what is so obvious to everyone else?’

She put her hands on her hips. Damn the man for his constant slurs and sordid innuendoes. ‘So what is it that’s so obvious to everyone else, Zane? What exactly do you mean? Maybe you should get it right off your chest.’

‘You need it spelt out? Okay! Why the hell would my father leave you such a huge share of the company? Forty-five per cent! You’ve already admitted my father was special to you. So why would he leave you a fortune if you weren’t something very much more than special?’

A rush of blood surged and crashed in her ears, urging her to fight.

‘You’re saying your father settled a fortune on me for living with him—for being his mistress. Is that right?’

‘Got it in one.’

‘Why is it with you that everything has to come down to sex?’

‘Doesn’t it?’

She wanted to disagree, but then, wasn’t this exactly what she wanted him to think? If he hated her for sleeping with his father, then he wouldn’t want to touch her, and if he didn’t touch her, then she’d have a chance of resisting this bizarre magnetism of his, she’d have a chance of not falling victim to his power.

So instead of giving in to the inciting jungle beat of her heart and lashing back a reply in the negative, she embarked on a different course. Arching one eyebrow provocatively, she pasted on a sultry smile and pushed her chest out conspicuously. He liked her breasts, he’d already made that more than clear. And then, as if on cue, his eyes followed the movements of her bustline, his gaze hot and hungry, and her smile widened. She knew she was baiting him, but it was no more than he deserved. He’d already made his mind up about her and it suited her purposes. Why not go with his prejudices? Why not play them for all they were worth?

‘Well, you’ve sure got me there, Zane,’ she said, her voice intentionally husky as she ran one hand slowly down the curve of her hip. ‘You know damn well I was special to him. Obviously our relationship meant a lot more to him than I realised. I never expected him to be quite so generous in return.’

The scarlet hue to his skin deepened as his throat corded and kicked out a pulse.

‘You know,’ she said in mock understanding, placing a flirty finger along her cheek as her tactics bore such luscious fruit. ‘I know what your problem is. I suspect maybe I was even more special to him than his own son. That’s what really gets your back up, isn’t it Zane? He loved me, and not you. That’s what you can’t abide. That’s why you hate me so much, isn’t it?’

He propelled himself a step closer, his movements charged with super-anger, his features contorted with rage, and Ruby’s heart skipped a beat. Why was he so angry when she was merely agreeing with whatever tawdry views of her he already held? His enraged features told her she’d more than made her mark—she’d gone too far!

‘Zane…’ she uttered, taking an instinctive step backwards as he powered closer. ‘I didn’t mean—’

The pulse in his brow hammered visibly, his eyes wild with turmoil, and whatever she’d been going to say was forgotten in the broiling atmosphere.

‘Of course he loved you more than he loved me. Why wouldn’t he want to?’ he said, his voice strangely soft, at odds with his entire posture. He reached out a hand and she could see the tension in his corded muscles, his tight skin. She flinched, but his hand moved to one side, to touch her hair, to softly curl a loose strand around his finger, to curve the back of his hand over her cheek as his eyes travelled over her face, burning a trail down to her shoulders, her bustline. Then lower….

She swallowed. ‘No,’ she whispered, sensing the danger had shifted gears and taken a new direction—a new direction that had her body humming with interest instead of shrinking away in fear. She licked her lips, her breathing suddenly shallow and unreliable as if he’d burned up the oxygen between them. ‘I didn’t mean that. I was wrong—’

He hushed her mouth with a finger from his other hand, stopping her words and her breath in the same instant. His scent wound its way into her, his taste leached into her recently moistened lips and his touch was so tender. So tender when he should be so angry.

She didn’t want him to be tender. She wanted him angry. Angry was consistent. Angry she could deal with. But this sudden tenderness…

Somehow this was infinitely more dangerous.

‘You were right,’ he admitted at last, dropping the hand at her mouth to skim down her throat and over the fullness of her breasts like an electric charge that made her gasp involuntarily as it scorched a trail all the way down. ‘You obviously gave him something I never could. But I have to ask myself one question. For a forty-five per cent share in the company, for something like two hundred million dollars—’

He hesitated, his face just a hair’s breadth away from her, his pause like a vacuum between them while his heated gaze continued to read her eyes, to caress her lips, as brazen as a torch brand on her flesh while the gentle pressure on her hair kept her close. And then his head tilted as his lips curled up into a thin, contemptible smile.

‘Well, it sure begs the question—just how good are you in bed?’

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