How did he do it? Make her instantly desperate for sex by simply ordering her about as if he had the right. She bit her lip to keep from squirming, to still the sordid pulsing between her legs, to damp her unreasonable craving for the beautiful, audacious, troublesome, demanding Dominic Knight.

‘You’re going to have to learn to speak when spoken to, Miss Hart. It’s only common courtesy. Tell me you understand you still have six days to fulfil on your contract.’

‘Don’t do this,’ she sullenly said.

‘And your duties weren’t definitely described, as I recall,’ he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Isn’t that right?’

She scowled. ‘Damn you,’ she muttered, hating that he had this power over her. Not that her aversion altered the fact that she was wired, wildly horny as if she’d not just come short minutes ago, her body already taut with expectation and her curse was breathy with need.

He noticed, but his voice was neutral when he spoke. ‘Such a quick temper. We’ll have to work on that. You’ll be less touchy once you’ve come a few more times.’

He couldn’t possibly know the extent of her arousal, could he?

‘I can smell your hot pussy,’ he murmured, as though reading her mind. ‘So tell me you understand.’

She reluctantly nodded, weak with longing, damn him; willing to do anything he wanted right now if it meant he’d satisfy her cravings.

‘That’s a good girl.’ His cool gaze travelled down her body, then up again. ‘Time to play again?’

She was having trouble concentrating with lust swamping her senses.

‘You really are impatient,’ he said, smiling faintly. He lightly tapped her cheek with his finger to gain her attention. ‘You haven’t been listening. Aside from our little encounter a few minutes ago, when did you last have sex?’

She half opened her mouth to say ‘Screw you’, but after one look at his cool gaze, she changed her mind.

‘Very smart,’ he murmured. ‘Now, answer me.’

She scowled. ‘Stop it.’

‘It’s a simple question.’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘Think.’ He slid the backs of his fingers up her inner thighs, smiled at her flinch, at the small muffled sound she uttered as he reached the soft, sensitive hollow where her legs met her hips. ‘How long ago did you have sex?’ His knuckles came to rest against the soft folds of her sex and he gently rubbed. ‘Exactly.’

She dragged in a sharp breath, the pressure of his fingers riveting, every nerve in her body screaming for more. ‘Three months ago,’ she said on a suffocated breath.

‘And who was the lucky man?’

‘Jesus Christ,’ she irritably said.

‘Only if you were hallucinating,’ he sardonically returned.

She gave him a mutinous look. ‘Are you enjoying yourself?’

‘Not completely.’ He smiled faintly. ‘But I have expectations.’

Twisting his wrists slightly, he slid his thumbs, palm deep, into her silken cleft. ‘A name.’

She shuddered as his thumbs circled her pulsing tissue, up and down, around, the delicate contact masterful; teasing, testing, indulgent, uber-skilled. It would be stupid to succumb to anger when she was feeling insatiable.

‘Andrew Knolls, you fucking control freak,’ she snapped. So she wasn’t a complete model of restraint.

He had an agenda too; he had no intention of losing his temper. ‘Was he good?’

‘Not bad. Is this a competition?’

He laughed. ‘If it is, the bar isn’t set too high.’

She glanced down at his prominent erection lifting the dark silk of his pyjamas. ‘What do I have to do to get that?’

His lashes dropped fractionally. ‘You probably shouldn’t phrase your question exactly that way.’

‘Would you please fuck me soon,’ she crisply said. ‘Clear enough?’

‘Crystal,’ he murmured, his thumbs smoothly massaging her ripe, pouty flesh. ‘Showtime?’

‘Yes, please, and I say that with all due deference considering your prickly mood.’

‘Or yours.’

Her nostrils flared. ‘If you say so.’

He smiled. ‘Ah – compliance at last.’

Her temper spiked but she didn’t respond to his jibe because his fingers were making her frantic and the ache of longing deep inside her was so powerful she felt as though the pressure might split her apart. She must have been fantasizing about Dominic Knight way too much, or maybe her sex life had been lacking of late. Regardless, he was the solution. ‘Since you’re nonchalant about this and I’m not, would you mind if I came again first?’ she said in a tumble of words before she lost her nerve.

He suppressed his smile at her breathless candour. ‘No problem. Here or in the bedroom?’

‘Here is fine. You scared everyone away anyway. No one will hear me scream.’

He grinned, slipped his thumbs upwards to her clit again and gently pressed. ‘You do know how to scream.’

It took her a moment to catch her breath and a moment more before the sexual jolt subsided and she found her voice. ‘I hope it’s not a deal-breaker.’

‘The way I’m feeling right now,’ he said, abruptly withdrawing his thumbs and stripping off his T-shirt with one swift jerk, ‘the world coming to an end wouldn’t be a deal-breaker.’ Pulling open the tie on his pyjama pants, he let them slide to the floor.