Free Christmas Nights by Penny Jordan Page A

certainly never had to deal with the kind of raw, demanding need he was experiencing now.
    Why? He had barely registered the fact that Ionanthe even existed before he had met her, and yet now here he was…
    Here he was
what
? Here he was wanting her so desperately and so passionately that he barely recognised himself any more?
    Max’s mouth hardened—the only outwardly visible sign of his inner demons and one that Ionanthe registered as antagonism towards her.
    Max was trying to force her to back down. Well, she wasn’t going to.
    The proud arching of her neck as she lifted her chin to confront him brought a sharp shock of physical reaction to Max’s senses. He wanted to cover the distance between them—to cover
her
in the most basic and intimate way. He wanted to slide his hand and then his mouth down the tormenting oh-so-proud and yet vulnerable arch of her creamy-fleshed neck. He wanted to pushed aside the neat fawn cashmere sweater she was wearing and explore the curve of her shoulder, tasting her, knowing her, feeling her breast swell into his hand and her nipple harden and tighten in his palm.
    Oblivious to Max’s reaction to her, Ionanthe pressed on.‘Either you bring that humiliation to an end by consummating our marriage,’ she told him determinedly, ‘or…’
    Her words were like the worst kind of sharp blows against already dangerously raw and open wounds, overloading his self-control, inflaming him, driving him into an unfamiliar place where the red mist that came down over him obliterated everything else, Max acknowledged. All he could think, all he knew, was that she was tormenting him to the point where he had to put some distance between them or risk them both facing the consequences.
    ‘This isn’t a discussion I want to pursue,’ he told her flatly, turning his back on her and heading for the door.
    For a second Ionanthe was too frozen with anger and disbelief to say or do anything. But then desperation drove her, and she ran for the door, reaching it ahead of Max and flattening her back against it, her arms outspread as she told him fiercely, ‘That’s not good enough. I won’t be treated like that. I want an answer from you, and I am not going to let you leave this room until I get one.’
    Max was so close to her that he could feel the sweet warmth of her breath against his skin. He wanted to close his eyes to blot out her image, but he couldn’t. How ironic it was that, whilst all Ionanthe wanted from him was a clinical and detached act of consummation, her sister had actively wanted to reduce him to wanting her, with all her wiles and coquettish well-used tricks. But she had never once come anywhere near arousing him to one tenth of the desire rampaging through him right now—for Ionanthe. A desire he had to control.
    ‘Stand aside,’ he commanded Ionanthe, stepping up to her and reaching out to grasp the handle of the door.
    ‘No,’ Ionanthe refused.
    Her denial was all the spark the dry tinderbox of tensions within him needed. Max’s self-control snapped. With one swift movement he imprisoned her against the door, the hand he had previously curled round the door handle now gripping her hip, whilst his other hand pinioned her shoulder.
    ‘You want an answer? Very well then—let
this
be your answer,’ Max told her, crushing his mouth down on hers, imprinting the shape and taste of it on her lips just as the weight of his body was imprinting itself against her flesh, forcing her to accept his domination.
    This wasn’t what she had wanted—so why was she allowing him to impose the bruising pressure of his kiss on her? How had she moved so quickly from holding the high ground with justifiable anger to this place where she was now, where her whole body was awash with a flood of sensations she didn’t want and
he
was the one in control?
    Somehow she managed to break the kiss, straining back from him, her heart racing from the exertion—the exertion or the excitement? The