By Royal Demand. Robyn Donald

fingers working smoothly against her sensitive scalp as he gentled the kiss, and she sighed into his mouth, shivering with pleasure. The smooth touch of his fingers on the back of her head sent arrows of intense delight through every cell in her body; too late, she realised that he was loosening the pins that held her sleek chignon in place. Her hair fell in a warm, heavy mass around her neck and shoulders, adding a sensuous friction to the explosions along her nerves already caused by his addictive mouth and deft hands.

      He moved slightly, accommodating her eager body in the cradle of his hips. The appetite he’d unleashed in her increased exponentially at the hard evidence of his arousal. She had to grit her teeth and jerk her head away to stop herself from pressing against him and giving up on the futile struggle to keep her sanity.

      Each kiss, each caress, was an exercise in power, she thought frantically: he was showing her how easily he could have her.

      Desperately she gasped, ‘No!’

      CHAPTER FOUR

      THE shifting, flexing muscles in Gabe’s torso and arms locked into stasis.

      Sara looked up into blue eyes glittering with lust and saw him reimpose control with an effortless ease that was like a blow to the heart.

      Yes, he’d been testing her.

      She forced words between her lips, wincing when she heard her voice, husky and rough with a longing she couldn’t hide. ‘You don’t have to pretend that you want me, Gabe. I don’t have any information to give you, so this seduction routine isn’t going to achieve anything.’

      ‘Beyond using up surplus energy?’ he said brutally, but he released her, turning away as though her violent, unwilling response had sickened him.

      As it probably had.

      It had certainly sickened her. She looked down at her trembling hands and said tonelessly, ‘I’ve had enough. I’m leaving right now.’

      ‘You’re not going anywhere.’

      Sara marshalled words in her mind, words that might convince him that this was an exercise in futility—and a dangerous exercise at that. Her surrender had been humiliating enough, but what really frightened her was that he’d wanted her almost as much as she’d wanted him. His belief that she’d stolen the ruby necklace should have killed that wildfire hunger completely.

      She hated being so vulnerable!

      Oh, she was entirely safe from falling in love with him again. Once was enough, she thought bitterly.

      But wanting him—that was an entirely different matter.

      Even when she’d believed that he’d loved her, the intensity of passion had alarmed her; it had felt like handing her whole self over to him.

      Numbly she blurted, ‘If I were a thief I’d have taken the money you just offered me.’

      ‘Not if you were planning to hold out for more,’ he said coolly. ‘If I’d accepted that Marya had stolen the necklace, you’d have had both the money you got for selling it and an intact engagement, with eventual access to my bank account when we married. By your reckoning, you’ve missed out.’

      ‘That is a foul thing to say,’ she retorted, shoring up her composure with anger, only to tamp it down because it wouldn’t get her anywhere. She drew in a jagged breath and tried reason. ‘Gabe, holding me prisoner isn’t going to work because I don’t know anything about the theft. For the same reason, seducing me won’t achieve anything. Acting like one of your robber baron ancestors might satisfy your need for revenge, but it won’t get you what you want.’

      He shrugged. ‘I don’t want revenge,’ he said briefly, and poured more champagne into her glass, his angular, clever face reflective.

      Hope warmed into life inside her. Perhaps her refusal of his insulting offer had begun to—oh, not to convince him, not yet, but make him wonder if he might be wrong about her? This whole situation was so unlike him. Although he had a reputation for dangerous manoeuvres, his career had been marked by a keen intelligence that carefully calculated every risk.

      Until they’d met. And now, this kidnapping…

      ‘You could let me go,’ she said quietly, knowing that if he did it would be another, final ending. She’d never see him again except in the newspapers and on television. ‘I won’t tell anyone what happened.’

      His expression hardened into cynicism. ‘Nothing’s happened, Sara. And you can stop looking at me with those wide, scared eyes. I don’t plan to torture the truth out of you, or lock you in a dungeon for the rest of your life.’

      ‘So what do you intend to do?’ she shot back.

      He handed her the champagne flute, seemingly not aware of the way her breath caught in her throat when their fingers touched.

      Picking up his own glass, he said abruptly, ‘I’ll make a deal with you. If you didn’t have anything to do with stealing the Queen’s Blood, you might still know something that would help—some scrap of information that doesn’t seem important, something that will lead to the thieves. We’ll go over what you recall, and if at the end of the week nothing comes of it then you can go.’

      She crushed a spark of angry rebellion. Gabe was arrogantly playing with her life, ordering it to suit himself because she didn’t have the power to prevent him. But that last offer sounded as though he was prepared to compromise.

      Dared she trust him? She scanned his handsome, enigmatic face.

      No way.

      Yet it would soothe some yearning part of her if she could persuade him that she had nothing to do with the theft. Warily, she said, ‘I don’t—’

      He cut her off, his expression brooking no further shilly-shallying. ‘Just give me an answer, Sara.’

      She said coldly, ‘I have no choice, do I?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘I think I’d rather be a prisoner than go through the pretence of being a guest and helping you with your enquiries.’ She loaded the phrase with sarcasm. ‘At least that would be honest. But if it will convince you that I truly don’t know anything, I’m game. And of course I’ll work on the bedrooms as well. However, what will happen at the end of the week when I’ve come up with nothing?’