A Delicious Deception

With a small murmur, which was half-need, half-despair, she wound her arms around his neck, glorying in the sensations that his six-feet-plus of power-packed masculinity sent coursing through her as she moved convulsively against his hard warmth.

‘Can you deny it now, Rayne?’ His voice was hoarse, a ragged whisper against the softness of her cheek. ‘What is there to lose in admitting that you want me every bit as much as you’ve made me want you?’

And just how much he hadn’t even realised until now. He’d had women in his time who’d given him pleasure and to whom he’d given pleasure in return. But that was all it had been. Pleasure. This girl, however, had a way about her that excited him and made his anatomy harden to such an extent that it hurt.

But why? Why, when to seduce her had been a cold, calculated plan? When he’d intended to remain detached and—if he was honest with himself—to have her begging, virtually down on her knees, for him to take her?

Well, that just showed him, he thought, mocking himself for his lack of immunity, his inability to stay unaffected, when all he wanted to do right now was rip off her clothes and carry her up to the nearest bed and feel her warm softness closing in around him, her body bucking beneath his as he drove into her.

Steady on, King …

He was breathing raggedly as he lifted his head.

‘So what’s it to be, Rayne? Your bed or mine?’ He was amazed at how cool—how indifferent—he managed to sound.

There was nothing cool, though, or indifferent, about the hand that was suddenly making contact with his left cheek, taking him so unawares he nearly overbalanced.

‘How dare you!’ Rayne found she was trembling so much she could hardly get her words out, realising that it wasn’t just his effrontery that was responsible for her impulsive action. It was also aggravated by the knowledge that she had invited what had happened between them every inch of the way, so that her anger was directed more at herself and her abandoned response to his kiss rather than at him.

‘I’m sorry. I could hardly help jumping to what I believed was a very natural conclusion,’ King expressed, holding his smarting cheek, deciding that he had rather overstepped the mark. Nevertheless that still didn’t stop him from enquiring mockingly, ‘Are you usually prone to bursts of violence?’

‘You drove me to it!’ It was a small wild cry, born of her despair over responding to him in the way she had, and for striking him, which she was thoroughly ashamed of now.

‘You drove yourself to it,’ he said quietly. ‘Firstly by refusing to acknowledge that there’s definitely something between us, and then in not doing so, suddenly finding yourself way out of your depth.’ His mouth moved in a kind of contemplative half-smile. ‘I’ll just put it down to frustration, shall I?’ he remarked, his eyes skimming over her in a shaming reminder of what had just transpired.

‘Put it down to whatever you like!’ she breathed, shocked by the passions he could arouse in her and, pivoting away from him, she fled up the stairs, wanting only to crawl into a hole and pretend that none of her shameless behaviour had ever happened.

In the privacy of her room she sank down on the sumptuous bed, dropped her head into her hands and groaned.

Whatever had come over her? Not only to throw herself at him as she had when he had had the audacity to kiss her, but then to slap him like that afterwards as though it had all been his fault. Being quite honest with herself, she was forced to admit that he was right. She had wanted him to kiss her. Wanted it like she had never wanted anything. A man who had hurt her father and, with Mitch, had as good as destroyed her family. Was that why she had hit him? Was it all part of the need for retribution? Or was King Clayborne simply always destined to bring out the worst in her?

Angry tears burned her eyes, but they were tears of remorse and scorching shame too. How could she have responded to him so easily, and without so much as a conscience? Without any thought for what the Claybornes had cost her parents. Was she really that weak? She padded over to the en suite bathroom to try and scrub the taste of King Clayborne off her mouth, promising herself, as well as both of her parents, that she would never let it happen again.

And if he did find out that she had been lying to him?

She shuddered, closing her mind against that intimidating scenario. That was something she definitely refused to think about on top of everything else.

The florist at the other end of the line seemed to be taking forever to deal with the order Rayne was trying to telephone through.

‘And the name on the card?’ she asked mechanically, in heavily accented English.

‘I explained to the lady I spoke to first that I haven’t got a card, but she said it would be all right if I brought the cash down before you close this afternoon. My name’s Lorrayne Hardwicke,’ Rayne told her, sending anxious glances towards the closed door.

She had come in here to the study to make a couple of calls and to try and sort out a birthday bouquet to be sent to her mother. She’d wanted to do it from the privacy of her own suite, but the maids were changing the bed and giving the rooms an extra fine clean today, and time was getting scarce if she wanted her mother to receive her flowers in the morning.

‘I’m afraid I cannot process the order unless we receive the credit or the money … what is it you say? Upfront,’ the woman emphasised, remembering. ‘I’m sorry, mademoiselle, but those are the conditions.’

‘But your manageress distinctly assured me it would be all right,’ Rayne despaired. She hadn’t missed sending her mother flowers on her birthday since she was eighteen, when things had started really going downhill for her parents. And OK, she couldn’t pay with a card, but she had a small amount of cash that she had earned from chauffeuring Mitch around, and the florist had said it would be all right.

‘My manageress has just left for the afternoon. I will try and get hold of her and ring you back if you will give me your number. What did you say your name was?’

‘Lorrayne Hardwicke.’

‘Can you spell that, please?’

Rayne darted another glance towards the door as she heard voices on the other side of it.

‘I’ll call you back,’ she said quickly, snapping her cellphone shut a fraction of a second before the door opened and King walked in.

‘What the …?’ His smile for whomever he had been talking to outside was wiped away by surprise at seeing her sitting there behind his father’s desk.

‘My room’s being cleaned and I needed to make a couple of calls,’ she told him croakily, not sure what was disturbing her most. Nearly being caught red-handed blurting out who she really was, or the visual images of what had happened between them earlier in the day. ‘Of course, if I’m intruding …’ She was already swivelling back on the studded leather chair.

‘I wouldn’t say that.’

In fact he was looking at her over what seemed like an acre of polished mahogany as though he was imagining her naked and spreadeagled across it. Or was that just what her own wild imaginings were conjuring up? She slammed the lid down on her errant thoughts before they could manifest themselves on her face. ‘I … I didn’t hear you come in.’

‘Evidently not.’ He’d been to pick up Mitch at his own insistence, and had come in here to find his pen to sign some letters his secretary had faxed through while he was gone. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t be acting as though I’d just caught you rifling through the silver cabinets.’ A distracted smile twisted the sensuous line of his lower lip. ‘Perhaps that’s it,’ he declared airily, pocketing his pen. ‘Are you looking for something, Rayne?’