„I would like to go to bed with you. Is that too much to ask?“
The sudden lazy desire in his words stopped her for an instant It also sidetracked her from her initial intent. Something far more immediately crucial was vibrating in the atmosphere between them.
She gathered her courage. „You’re not staying here tonight I meant what I said. Last weekend was a mistake and I don’t intend to repeat it.“
He surveyed her with a probing expression. „A mistake? Do you really think of it that way?“
„Yes, dammit! I do!“ The protest was a little too vehement and Kalinda was aware of it.
„Come here and let me change your mind,“ he offered deeply, extending invitingly upward to draw her down onto his lap.
Kalinda stepped away, trying vainly to cover her nervousness by scooping up a stack of glasses and heading for the kitchen. She knew he was following her, his footfalls soft on the thick green carpet.
She couldn’t retreat any further than the sink. Just as she set the glasses down with a clink Rand came up behind her, his hands gliding possessively, longingly around her waist.
„I want you, sweetheart,“ he murmured, his breath warm on her hair. „More than I wanted you that morning in the mountains and at the time I didn’t think anything could be stronger than that need.“
„Oh, Rand, please don’t do this to me! I don’t want an affair. I don’t want to be one of your weekend women…“
„There won’t be any other women, Kalinda,“ he promised with absolute conviction, his fingers sliding up to cup her breasts. „You are the only one I want Why do you think I followed you back to Denver? What we found together was very special, sweetheart Can’t you at least admit that much?“
She trembled as his lips touched the back of her neck. He kissed her nape and the curve of her shoulder as his fingertips gently circled the tips of her breasts through the material of the silk. She felt the need and want in him and it was like a drug, stirring her own responses even while she desperately tried to talk herself into a rational course of action.
„We… we had something very short and meaningless…“
„Meaningless!“ He swung her around to face him, a raw, demanding look on his face. „I’ll grant it was a little short,“ he said rightly, „but it sure as hell wasn’t meaningless! At least,“ he went on accusingly, „not to me. Are you trying to tell me you were using me, Kalinda? That you only came by my house on your way out of town to conclude a weekend fling with a man who amused you?“
„Don’t put words in my mouth! You know it wasn’t like that!“
Anxiously she frowned up at him, her fingers splayed across the finely woven material of his suit jacket. „I… I felt I had to see you again to tell you that you had succeeded in making me see reason where David was concerned. You were so worried about me.“
„With good reason, as it turned out The man’s trying to destroy you!“
„But I never intended to go to bed with you!“
„Then why did you?“ he countered with the trace of a smile.
„Because… because…“ She broke off, floundering for an explanation of the unexplainable.
„Because you wanted me as much as I wanted you,“ he finished for her, all sure, masculine triumph as he pulled her close. „And I’m going to see if I can’t make you want me even more in the days to come. Starting tonight.“
„No! All you want from me is sex. I won’t fall into that trap,“ she cried as he lowered his head to take her lips.
„You’re wrong, honey,“ he whispered seductively against her mouth. „I want something much more important from you. I want a commitment“
Kalinda struggled. Struggled to ask him what he meant by a commitment, struggled to free herself from his embrace. Both efforts failed abysmally as his kiss swamped her senses.
Just as it had that morning in his home by the lake, the potent desire in him reached out to trap her senses and send them reeling. It fed the desire in herself until Kalinda could barely sustain the futile struggle to control it.
He seemed oblivious of her hands pushing on his shoulders, his hold on her a warm, confining, unshakable thing that kept her gently, securely in his grasp. It lured her, seduced her, promised the stars to her and her traitorous body believed everything.
He groaned with relief and longing as he coaxed apart her lips, feeling them soften and yield beneath his own. His hands slid down her back, urging her body more firmly against tautening thighs.
Kalinda felt herself sinking against him, responding to his passion with a desperate craving of her own. A craving she had never known before she had met this man who mystified her. Reality spun away, leaving only the knowledge that he was here with her again. The emptiness she had experienced as she drove away from him that morning in the mountains was at last being filled. *
His tongue, moving with hot aggression in her mouth, slowly withdrew as Rand gently, reluctantly broke the kiss.
„Take me into your bed, Kalinda. I swear I’ll be as loyal as any of your faithful band of employees. I’ll keep the marauding sharks away from your door for you.“
She turned her head into his shoulder, felt his damp, arousing kisses on the vulnerable, sensitized skin behind her ear and then on her throat.
„I thought it was yourself you called a shark,“ she reminded him shakily, trying to think straight and knowing it was hopeless.
„It takes one to fight one, sweetheart.“ He trembled against her, eliciting that seductive feeling of female power that she had known before with him. It was power combined with the illogical desire to satisfy. It made no sense to Kalinda but it seemed to make perfect sense to her body.
„Are you really a shark?“ she whispered, ripping her head back to meet his eyes searchingly.
He sucked in his breath, his hands tightening around her waist.
„Yes,“ he said with heavy honesty. „But you can control me, darling. I’ll only work for you, never against you. Please believe me!“
She shook her head, dazed. „But I don’t understand, Rand. If you know all about the ruthless side of the business world, if you have those abilities, what were you doing for the past year and a half in the mountains?“
He hesitated, as if uncertain how to explain himself. „I was running away from what those abilities had made me. I was running away from the shark I had become. A year and a half ago I took a good look at myself, sweetheart, and decided I didn’t like what I saw. I needed time to think, time to discover another side of life. So I went to the mountains.“
Kalinda saw the naked, vulnerable look in his eyes and knew in that moment that he’d never told another soul what he’d just told her. Before she could stop to think, she lifted her palms to either side of his harshly carved face.
„And now you think you want to come back to the life you left behind? What makes you believe it will be any different this time, Rand?“
„This time I have you. This time I have something more important than building an empire.“
In spite of the tension of the moment, Kalinda’s lips twitched. „I’m supposed to be a civilizing influence on a shark?“
„I seem,“ he observed, sweeping her up into his arms with an easy movement, „to be fated to serve as a source of amusement for.you!“
„I wasn’t laughing at you,“ she protested, clinging automatically as he began striding out of the kitchen.
„Yes, you were,“ he said beguilingly. „But I know how to wipe that smile out of your lovely eyes!“
When he turned unerringly down the hall to her bedroom, Kalinda’s head fell back against his shoulder, her lashes drooping softly to flicker on her cheeks.
Her implicit surrender made itself felt Rand held her with fierce passion as he walked into the bedroom at the end of the hall. With a glance around the room, he made his way to the bed and settled her gently down on it.