‘I’ll shut the curtains.’

She watched him stride away, naked and beautiful, all rippling muscle and casual ruthlessness. He wasn’t used to asking, or braking hard when an obstacle got in his way; he just reached out and took what he wanted. But it wasn’t as though she was averse to fucking him.

‘There. You’re safe now,’ he said, walking back.

She stared at his beautifully formed erection flat against his stomach. It was large and intimidating, immodest, arresting. She began to quiver inside. ‘I suppose if you must have your way,’ she said, in one last grating poke at his authority, wondering if every other woman he knew responded to him with the same inexplicable longing. Wondering if her monstrous sexual need was her fault or his or no one’s fault – just some transcendent mystery. ‘Ask me nicely,’ she said though, because she wanted to be more than one of the crowd. She always had.

‘Please, darling. I’d be extremely grateful, if that helps,’ he added gently.

‘I’m not sure it does.’ But she was like an alcoholic needing that next drink, and unbuckling the jet buckle at her waist, she held out the belt and slipped out of her shoes.

‘In any case, I thank you for indulging me,’ Dominic said, taking the belt from her and dropping it. ‘Turn around. I’ll unzip you.’

Kate sighed, in surrender and rebuke. ‘Remind me never to come to a cocktail party with you.’

‘Remind me never to bring you to one.’ He stopped her turn with a hand on her hip, reached for the zipper. ‘It was hell watching you talking to all those men.’

‘That works out then, because I didn’t like you talking to all those women.’

‘Asking them for money,’ he coolly pointed out. ‘There’s a difference.’

‘I’m sure they were more than willing to oblige you in hopes you might reward them for their generosity.’

‘But I didn’t,’ he said. ‘I turned them down. You’re the only one I want.’ He slid the satin sleeves down her arms, eased the dress down her hips, let it slip to the floor while her heart swelled with happiness that he wanted her and the queue of breathless women all were left behind. ‘There now,’ he whispered, picking her up by her waist, kicking the dress aside, turning her to face him. ‘After an evening of bullshit, I finally have my reward.’

‘So tell me,’ she murmured, a modern Circe practising her arts, ‘does my plain white cotton underwear intrigue you?’

‘It has a certain virtuous charm. Apparently Mrs Hawthorne supplies props for every illicit and perverse fetish.’ He smiled. ‘I believe this is where I ask you how old you are?’

‘Old enough,’ Kate purred.

He shook his head. ‘Not the right answer. I try to avoid sex that has legal repercussions.’

‘If I were underage I’d still want to fuck you.’

‘But you wouldn’t because I’m not stupid.’

She sighed theatrically. ‘Very well. I’m twenty-two.’

He laughed. ‘And available.’

‘And really hot for you after years in a convent school. Oh, you liked that one I see.’ She pointed at his surging dick.

The convent school comment triggered high school memories, but it was the hot babe standing in front of him that added inches to his dick. ‘We like everything about you, Katherine.’ He smiled. ‘Who would have thought cotton underwear was such a turn-on.’

‘It doesn’t take much for you.’

‘Or you. Come here.’ He flicked his index finger. ‘Let’s see if you’re wet.’

She moved closer and on reaching him, stopped, looked up and smiled. ‘I’m always wet when you’re around. Maybe it’s your shampoo.’

‘Or maybe you just like to fuck all the time,’ he said, smiling back.

‘I hope that’s not a problem.’

‘It isn’t, so long as it’s only me you’re fucking.’

‘A shame we’ve moved out of the Middle Ages,’ she sardonically noted.

‘But I still outweigh you by a hundred pounds,’ he said, soft as silk. ‘So maybe the century doesn’t matter.’ Taking hold of her arm in a deliberate act of constraint, he leaned over, slid his hand between her legs and gently rubbed her sex through the damp cotton knit fabric. ‘You’re really wet, Katherine. And you said you weren’t interested in having sex. Too many people, you said, too indiscreet, you said.’ He looked up, his gaze mocking. ‘Did you change your mind?’

‘Don’t look so smug. You make me horny, that’s all.’

‘Or do you suppose all those men looking down your dress tonight made you horny?’ Sliding his finger under her panties, he delicately stroked her slick cleft before standing upright and licking his fingertip. ‘That’s definitely horny, babe. Ready for fucking.’ He brushed her nipples with his palms, a casual gesture of possession, lightly pinched the rising crests as they swelled against the soft fabric. ‘Maybe all those men looking at your tits made you wet?’

She shivered at his touch. ‘No one was looking.’

‘Liar.’

‘Well, I didn’t ask them to.’

He smiled tightly, his gaze cooled. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Dominic, stop it. It was nothing. Cocktail conversation. The most banal chitchat.’