Free Heartbreaker by Laurie Paige

her.
    He gave her a wary, questioning look.
    â€œMoney?” she asked. “Prestige? Ah, the wonderful Dr. O’Day. He saved Susan Wainwright, you know. Her family endowed a whole wing of the hospital in his name—”
    She got no further in her taunting.
    Michael had always been too focused, too busy, to bother with anger, especially with other people. Right now, though, he saw red. It was as if an alien mist had rolled over his mind, taking control of his reactions and his conscience.
    He would teach her a lesson.
    With a quickness of motion ingrained in him from his work, he lifted and carried her to the sofa. There, he laid her out like a feast prepared just for him. Before she could move, he pinned her by lying partially on her, not enough to crush, but enough to keep her at his mercy.
    â€œLet me go,” she demanded.
    â€œNot on your life,” he said in an angry snarl.
    Her eyes flicked open wide, then she gave him a narrow-eyed frown of warning. He caught her hands and pinned them above her head before she could think of a way to use them he might not like.
    He took her mouth when she opened it. He delved inside and felt the exquisite heat that was hers. The mist in his mind thickened to a hot haze of desire.
    Against his chest, he felt her nipples contract and knew she felt it, too, in spite of the battle of the wills between them, in spite of both knowing this was insane.
    â€œHow will you respond to this?” he asked huskily, and took her breast in his palm.
    She tensed beneath him, and he experienced the flex of her strong, lithe, trained body. It was like holding some fluid medium, one of energy and force, but crafted with infinite grace, too.
    It was wonderful. It was hell.
    Hell—because he knew he couldn’t go far enough to appease the raging hunger she released in him. But it would be far enough to teach her a lesson.
    With easy movements, he dispensed with the buttons and the belt on her dress, then spread it to either side so that he could look at her. “You take my control to the limit,” he said, warning her and himself.
    Unable to stand it, he unfastened the delicate bra and lavished attention on the rosy tips of her breasts,sucking at one, then the other, until she moved against him, responding as he’d known she must. Neither of them could deny the need they stirred in each other.
    And the anger. He had to hold on to that or he’d let go completely and take them both to paradise.
    â€œTouch me,” he ordered.
    With a shaky sigh, she yielded to the madness and pushed her hands under his T-shirt. She explored his flesh as if learning to trek through a strange land. When she fingered his nipples, a ripple of longing coursed through him. He sought her lips again.
    The kiss went on and on, past lesson-giving, past reason and integrity and all that baggage.
    â€œOhh,” she gasped while he laved hot kisses along her throat. “Come to me.”
    It was a plea.
    He was on fire for her. Some part of him knew he’d slipped beyond—way beyond—the control of his conscience. They were male and female, acting on instincts as old as time and as unrelenting.
    Laying his hand on her breast, he felt the beat of her heart. Against his lips, he could feel the wild, harsh pounding of her pulse. He heard the gasps as she breathed. Her hands roamed over him in sensual forays, needy in the desperate yearning that consumed them.
    He knew they had to stop.
    â€œEasy,” he whispered.
    â€œNow,” she demanded, her hands urgent on him.
    â€œNo.” He kissed her a thousand times, gentle soothing kisses to cool the volcano of need.
    â€œWhy? We’re both willing.”
    He heard the perplexed hurt behind the words. “Because it’s time to leave. My plane is ready. I’ll take you home.”
    â€œTo Mission Creek?”
    â€œYes.”
    He knew the moment sanity returned. Regretfully he eased away and stood, freeing