Free Pride & Consequence Omnibus by Penny Jordan

had cut the ground from beneath her feet.
    Oblivious to the bombshell he had just dropped on her, Jay continued briskly, ‘You’ll find it much more convenient, being in the city, and I’ll supply you with a driver so that you can go out to the site if you need to whilst I’m in Mumbai. As for your samples—I thought I’d already made it clear that I expect you to use locally sourced materials. I’ll take you down to the bazaar once I’ve shown you the scale model of the site, and introduce you to some of the suppliers I’ve already sourced.’
    ‘Are you sure that you want a designer?’ The thought of having to share a living space with him had upset her so much that Keira was in a headlong flight that redirected her fear into sarcasm. ‘It seems to me that what you really want is someone who says yes to everything you say.’
    ‘Isn’t that what all women secretly want?’ Jay taunted her softly. ‘A man who can tame her creativity to fit his own desires and tells her so? You modern women may deny it, but none of us can go against nature. Isn’t it true that secretly you prefer a man to know himself and his desires so that he can use them to become a truly creative and imaginative lover, who can take you to a place where every fantasy you’ve ever had can be fulfilled? Be honest and admit that it’s true. A woman of your age living in these modern times must know that truth—unless, of course, you are still waiting for a man with whom you can experience that degree of pleasure.’
    How was it possible for her to feel so hot and so cold at the same time, with her stomach churning with shocked fear and her head dizzy with even more shocked excitement?
    ‘Nothing to say? Perhaps, then, the lovers you’ve experienced in the past weren’t as satisfying as they might have been?’
    What was going on? How had the conversation managed to go from a businesslike discussion of Jay’s requirements to this? However it had happened, it certainly wasn’t kindly intentioned, Keira suspected.
    She took a deep breath and told him calmly, ‘I don’t think that this kind of conversation is appropriate, given our business relationship.’
    She was doing it again. Jay could feel the heat of mingled anger and arousal beating up inside his body, threatening his self-control. He had no idea what it was about this woman that pushed against the boundaries of that control and threatened it so dramatically and with such speed, but he couldn’t deny any more that there was something about her that did. It acted on him like a goad—irritating, driving, inciting, making him burn with a need to make her want him as much as he did her, to make her admit that want and cry it out to him. Only then could his pride be salved. Only her pleas for his possession and her cries of pleasure could satisfy it. And him?
    ‘Not given our business relationship,’ he agreed. ‘But what about this relationship?’
    As he finished speaking he took his hand off the steering wheel, reached out slowly, and very deliberately rubbed his thumb across Keira’s nipple.
    The shock of his touch was like an electric charge shooting through her. Her body, already sensitised to him from their earlier intimacy, reacted with the immediacy of a monsoon downpour, drenching her with aching need.
    One look at her blatantly aroused expression had Jay stopping the four-by-four abruptly in the middle of the dusty empty road. It was almost midday, and there was no escape for anyone foolish enough to be caught in the sun’s heat as it scorched the scrubby patches of dried-out grass. In the distance Keira could see trees that would provide shade and protection from the heat. But, like the grass, she was exposed by her own foolishness, and there was no protection for her unless she herself created it. She could feel the heat pressing in on the four-by-four as though trying to possess and overwhelm its artificial air-conditioned coolness. Safety and security were such