Free For Revenge or Redemption? by Elizabeth Power

warmth penetrated the fine material of her robe. His other arm was stretched across the back of the settee, setting her head spinning in a whirl of fear and wild anticipation.
    If he kissed her…!
    Surprisingly, though, he made no other move to touch her beyond keeping her there.
    Rigid with tension, her breasts rising and falling sharply, she breathed, ‘What do you want from me, Seth?’
    She caught his sharp intake of breath and wondered if that arm lying across her could feel the hard pulse that was throbbing away inside her.
    ‘I believe I once asked the same question of you.’
    Yes, he had, she remembered, recoiling from the reminder, because they both knew what it was she had wanted—and, heaven help her, still wanted—from him. In spite of the ruth-lessness in his desire for revenge, in spite of all he had taken from her, because she couldn’t deny it now.
    Sexually, she was as attracted to him as she had ever been. More so, if that was possible. But it was just her flesh that was weak. It meant nothing beyond that, and she had to keep reminding herself of that. Seth Mason was a dangerous man and she’d be a fool if she were to allow herself to fall into his honey-tongued trap. Because that was all it was, she decided—the flowers. The apparent concern. Just ways of wearing her resistance down until he could claim the ultimate prize for himself: her surrender to his powerful sexuality. And what then? she wondered, shuddering.
    She longed to put a safe distance between them, and common sense alone prevented her from making any sudden moves. That would have had the same effect as a mouse trying to escape the clutches of a prowling jungle cat, she realised hopelessly, knowing by instinct alone that if she attempted it then that arm would tighten mercilessly around her—and where would she be then?
    Instead, her fine features ravaged by her darkest emotions and the things that she must never, ever tell him, and with her eyes fixed on a pastoral watercolour on the far wall that she had bought for next to nothing at a car-boot sale, she asked, ‘Just how much persuasion did it take on your part to get Corinne to hand over her share of the company?’
    ‘What is it you want me to say, Grace?’ He inhaled deeply, sitting back, mercifully withdrawing his arm as he did so. ‘That I’m sleeping with her?’
    Unable to help herself, she sent a swift glance towards his hard-hewn face, breathing normally again now that he had released her, or as normally as it was possible to breathe in his devastating sphere. ‘Are you?’
    His lashes came down, veiling the perfect clarity of his eyes. ‘You think I’d kiss and tell on any woman I bed?’
    She laughed, a humourless sound strung with tension, as images of him naked on that beach, and as he would be in bed now—his long limbs entwined with others that were paler, more submissive in their passion—rose to threaten her far-too-vulnerable defences. ‘Are you trying to tell me you have scruples?’
    Seth’s mouth compressed. ‘No more than you.’
    She turned away from him, her chin lifting in spite of the reminder. A cold feeling seemed to settle right in the place where his arm had lain.
    ‘Does it matter to you, Grace?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Whether I’m sleeping with her or not?’
    ‘Hardly,’ she sneered.
    He laughed softly, the warmth of his breath stirring the fine hairs at her temple, making her stiffen. ‘Such protestation!’ he mocked. ‘I just wonder why the lady deems it necessary to deliver it with such force.’
    ‘I would have thought that was obvious.’ She leaped up now, dreading that she might have given him cause to suspect how her body reacted to him against her will, against her rational thinking. ‘You’re despicable!’ she breathed.
    His mouth moved carelessly. ‘Shouldn’t you be saying that to those closer to home?’
    He meant Corinne—and Paul.
    Turning wounded eyes in his direction, she noticed the grace with which he moved,