Tess glared at the man standing in the centre of her empty living room—his imposing build filling up most of the available space and taking up all the oxygen too. She’d hardly pushed herself this morning, settling on a very leisurely four-mile run, so why the heck couldn’t she breathe?

‘That was then.’ She glared harder. ‘This is now, and I don’t want to have anything to do with you any more.’

‘Tough,’ he countered, actually having the gall to sound self-righteous. ‘Because I want to talk to you.’

‘Oh, really?’ She placed a finger on her chin. ‘I wonder why? Have you come to accuse me of lying again?’

The crease on his brow became a fissure. ‘I never accused you of anything.’ The statement was clear, precise and so smug it made her want to slap him. Men like him never even thought to apologise for their actions.

‘Terrific, well, I’m glad we got that settled.’ She waved her hand dismissively. ‘You can go now.’ She walked back into the kitchenette, and concentrated on keeping her glare in place.

She heard him step into the kitchenette behind her and turned, more than a little disconcerted to find him within a foot of her. She plopped the glass on the counter, the narrow space way too vivid a reminder of the close confines of a certain utility cupboard.

‘If you insist on staying, why don’t you tell me what you want to talk about?’ she asked, annoyed that he was doing that oxygen-sucking thing again and all she could smell was the piney scent of his soap, which had to be the reason for her breathing difficulties. ‘That way we can get it over with and never have to lay eyes on each other again.’

Which was what she wanted. Fervently.

‘If you were really pregnant with my child, what I want to talk about would be pretty damn obvious.’ His gaze raked over her—and her sweaty running gear became a cast-iron corset, pressing into her breasts.

If.

The word was loaded with as much doubt and accusation as she remembered from his office over a week ago. But instead of leaving her feeling shocked and vulnerable, this time all his low opinion did was make her temper ignite. She concentrated on the flare of anger, and tried to ignore the tightening around her ribcage.

‘All right, then.’ She crossed her arms, annoyed when her swollen breasts began to throb under his gaze for no apparent reasons. ‘If you’re so convinced I’m not pregnant with your child, what exactly are you doing here?’

Before she could react, she saw the sheen of lust dilate his pupils and his hand clasped the back of her neck. Her arms released instinctively as he pulled her flush against him, his lips millimetres from hers, her heavy breasts not just throbbing now, but aching. She arched into him instinctively, pressing the swollen tips against the solid wall of his chest like a hungry cat.

‘You know what I’m doing here,’ he growled, the words guttural with desperation. ‘It’s the same reason you let me into the apartment. I can’t get you out of my head.’

And then his lips were on hers. And all pretence of sense, or even sensibility, burned away in a fireball of need.

Her fingers sank into the glossy strands of hair at the base of his skull, massaged his scalp as he devoured her mouth, bit into her lower lip. She thrust her tongue into the hot recesses of his mouth, kissing him back with an instinctive need to taste, to take, to torture him the way he was torturing her.

He dragged his mouth away. His harsh breathing rasping against her ear as he fumbled for her running vest, yanked it over her head, then pressed his palms against her sports bra, lifting the weight of her heavy breasts. Her thin cry of need reverberated in her ears.

‘How can I still want you this much?’ he groaned, his words echoing her thoughts.

He released the hook on her bra and scooped up her tender flesh with his rough palms. Then his mouth—hot and wet—closed over the straining nipple. He suckled hard then transferred to the other nipple, tugged on the newly sensitive peak and made a pistol shot of need explode inside her.

She sucked in a shuddering breath, sobbed as he continued to torment first one breast then the other, and the firestorm rushed towards her. She screamed, the clench and rush of fulfilment sudden and shockingly intense.

‘Did you just come?’

All she could manage was a weak nod, as stunned by the staggering speed and intensity of her orgasm as he was.

His brows rose up his forehead then he swore, grasping her hips and lifting her easily onto the countertop. She clung to him, her body limp, sated, despite the pressure now burning like an inferno between her thighs. The Formica felt cold on her bottom as he yanked down her sweats, pulled them off and ripped the purple silk of her knickers. She listened in a trance to the sound of clothing being struggled out of, ripping foil, the ragged pants of their breathing.

And then he was there, huge and solid, the blunt head of his erection probing her entrance.

He stopped abruptly, his chest heaving as the deep blue gaze connected with hers. ‘I want to be inside you.’

She watched his jaw clench, rigid with the effort to hold back, and somewhere her dazed mind registered that he was asking her for permission before he took that final plunge. She lifted her arms around his neck, wrapped her legs around his hips and pressed her burning centre against the brutal pressure, letting instinct take over and damning the consequences.

‘Don’t stop,’ she demanded.

He groaned, gripped her bottom and impaled her in one glorious, all-consuming stroke. He pulled out briefly, then thrust back, harder, faster and further—filling every part of her. His fingers dug into her buttocks, anchoring her for the brutal possession, his movements not smooth or controlled, but basic, elemental, just like their first time. He adjusted her hips, his pelvis caressing her swollen clitoris with each powerful inward thrust, and the pleasure built in an unstoppable rush, rolling through her. Forcing her up, dragging her back, and hurling her over again.

She sobbed through that last brutal release and crashed past the final barrier as his feral shout of fulfilment followed her over the edge.

PLEASE let it have been an erotic dream…

TESS squeezed her eyes shut and prayed as she walked down the hallway of her apartment, drying her damp hair after a desperate attempt to rinse off the scent of sex and insanity in the apartment’s power shower.

‘I made coffee. All I could find was decaff.’

Her gaze darted to the kitchenette at the husky comment, and the towel flopped onto her shoulders. The muscles in her spine tensed at the sight of the man standing by the counter with a mug of coffee at his lips.

Fabulous.

This was no dream. It was a nightmare. She really had made love to Nate Graystone like a sex-starved rabbit, twenty minutes ago.

Apart from the two undone buttons at the top of his pristine white shirt, and the furrows in his thick black hair, he didn’t look like a man who had recently been ravaged by a nymphomaniac.

Unfortunately, she knew better.

She resisted the urge to groan. And let go of the fervent prayer that he might have taken the hint when she shot off to the shower, and miraculously vanished.

‘Decaff is all I have.’ She avoided his eyes, deciding that the post-coital politeness was as unbearable as the antagonism that had preceded it.

‘I hope black works, because I couldn’t find cream either,’ he said, handing her a cup.

‘Black’s fine.’ She leant over the counter to take the mug he must have pulled out of her packing case, careful not to step back into the kitchenette with him.

Best not to get too close to him again. The man had some weird chemical effect on her self-control that appeared to be exacerbated by her pregnancy—how else could she have allowed this to happen? Again.