Free Detained by Ainslie Paton

easy listening playing on the stereo but it was the wrong mood. It should’ve been the organised chaos of heavy metal to match the thumping of his heart. This wasn’t going to be a delicate moment. It wasn’t going to be forgettable. It was Jimi Hendrix or Nine Inch Nails.
    The anticipation of stripping her naked and tasting her skin was making it hard to stand still. But the way she was looking at him, like she knew this was her last chance to change her mind, kept him fastened to the plush pile.
    She moved, skirting around the sofa, stopping just out of reach. “What if I hurt you?”
    “Not possible.”
    “I don’t mean physically.”
    Could she hurt him in other ways? Had any woman truly hurt him? Only Jiao came close, but that was absence, not hurt—a habit lost, not another permanent scar.
    “Not possible.”
    “Cocky.”
    He grinned. It was the perfect description.
    “Arrogant.”
    Now she was really warming up. “You know me.”
    “Not all of you.”
    He unlatched his belt, popped the button on his chinos. “I’m not stopping you trying.”
    Her hand came up to the buttons on her dress.
    “Leave that for me. Come here,” his voice crackled like he’d been on a three day bender.
    “Didn’t anyone teach you ‘please’?”
    “It didn’t stick.”
    He brought his hand up and curled his fingers in a come here gesture. Her gaze went to his hand, she flushed. Was she remembering what he’d done with those fingers inside her? Was she as aroused as he was? He could be on her in less time than it took to swallow. Instead he turned and walked through the doorway into the bedroom.

9. Liar
    “They must often change who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.” — Confucius
    He was a pirate. He was a gun runner. He was an opium pusher and a slave master. He was everything in a man Darcy normally avoided. Arrogant didn’t come close to describing him. Cocky was an endearment. But she could hardly breathe from the excitement of hearing the thud of his shoes hitting the floor in the bedroom, and the sound his zip made as he ripped it down.
    He expected her to come to him, but he was letting her choose.
    Hell—no he wasn’t.
    He’d wound her up like a toy programmed to respond to his commands. Knowing that should’ve made her feel sick. She didn’t hand her independence to anyone.
    She heard a drawer open and close. He’d checked for her slide of pills.
    He’d lied.
    He had to know her name. She’d told him where she worked. He’d have used that. Figured out the rest. A man this used to being in control wouldn’t risk not knowing who he’d put up in his complimentary suite.
    She went to the doorway of the bedroom. The quilt was puddled in a cloud on the floor. His pants were draped over the arm of a chair. He was propped up on the pillows, in the middle of the bed where she’d slept last night, the sheet pooled around his waist. She couldn’t look away from the straight line of his broad shoulders, the hard ridge of muscle in his chest that fell to ripples down his abdomen.
    The two bedside lights blazed and he looked at her with pure expectation in his eyes.
    “You’re a liar.”
    He didn’t expect that, but only a flick of his chin gave it away. “Everyone lies, gorgeous. What do you think I lied about?”
    “You know my name.”
    “I know a whole hell of a lot more dangerous information about you than your name. I know what you look like when you come. Like you could fly.”
    He spoke like a poet, like a lawyer. Like a man who knew the measure of words, not one who’d struggled to learn to read. He didn’t deny it. He was a liar and God knows what else, but she couldn’t wait to crawl across the wide expanse of bed and have his hands on her.
    “I didn’t lie to you about anything that can hurt you, gorgeous.”
    “What did you lie about?”
    “I’m a gun runner.”
    “I’m serious.”
    “No lie, you’re beautiful.”
    “That’s irrelevant.”
    “Not from where I’m