Free Too Proud to be Bought by Sharon Kendrick Page B

it—unless they happened to be passing at the split second when you were arching your back and moaning my name.’
    His words painted a provocative image which turned her bones to water and desire warred with shock as she acknowledged his arrogant boast. ‘You’re…you’re outrageous,’ she managed, through lips so dry they felt like sandpaper.
    ‘I think we established that a while back, didn’t we?’ His eyes narrowed as he glanced down at the agitated rise and fall of her breasts. ‘Stop making it difficult for yourself, Zara.’ He bent his head so that he whispered his lips along the line of her jaw. ‘Let’s just make love.’
    Her resolve at breaking point, it was his words which brought Zara back to her senses with a start.
Make love?
What the hell was he talking about? What would the instant gratification he was proposing have to do with
any
kind of emotion—least of all love? If he’d said ‘let’s have quick and meaningless sex’ at least it would have been honest.
    Distractedly, she covered her mouth with her palm and could feel her quickened breathing. She
shouldn’t
have let herself get so carried away—especially after all her good intentions. And even though she could put some of the blame on Nikolai’s undoubted skill—she wasn’t blameless herself, was she? She had let him get intimate with her, had egged him on, like someone who was desperate for a man’s touch. What if she had actually capitulated? A cold sweat broke out on her forehead. How could she actually have the courage to serve him and guests tonight if she’d actually let him…let him …?
    Uncomfortably, she shrank even further away from him. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said, giving her dress a quick tug so that it sat respectably on her knees as she glanced over at the clock on the dashboard. ‘And besides, time is running out. I’m supposed to be serving cocktails on the terrace at seven—and I need to shower and change before that.’
    He waited for the ‘but’ which never came—and to his astonishment Nikolai could see that she meant every word of it. He noted the defiant little tilt of her chin—a gesture which was as clear as daylight. She was turning him down!
    ‘You’re not serious?’
    ‘Oh, but I am.’
    He stared at her for a moment longer, as if daring her to continue—but continue she did, stubbornly and primly crossing her arms across her chest as if she were posing for a team photo! Bemused and more than a little frustrated, he jammed his shades back on and started the car with an angry click of the ignition. He put his foot down for the journey back and the loud noise of the engine killed the need for conversation. Not that he felt like saying very much to her, other than to ask whether she’d done some sort of intensive research into teasing men to a dangerous point of provocation. And he didn’t say another word to her, apart from a curt goodbye when he dropped her off at the gate of his house and roared off towards the garage block with a noisy spurt of gravel.
    Afterwards, he told himself that she must be playing more games with him—she
must
be. Women didn’t turn him down. Nobody
ever
turned Nikolai Komarov down and certainly not more than once! There had to be a reason for it. He wondered if her sudden prim response had been motivated by a desire to gain accessto his bedroom. To play at being mistress of his house, perhaps? Or simply to extract from him an even more generous pay-cheque than the one he was already offering her?
    For the first time in his adult life, his ego felt bruised and, although he didn’t particularly like the feeling, neither did he dwell on it. All he knew was he hadn’t felt this lustful for a long time, and, inexplicably, this little waitress had fed that hunger with her reluctant behaviour. She was running rings round him and now it had become more than desire—it was a matter of pride. Did she really think that she would be able to resist him much