The Gold Collection. Maggie Cox

the worktop. ‘I don’t care,’ she told him sharply, terrified that he might think she was jealous. Her cheeks burned when he continued to stare at her speculatively, as if he could see inside her head. ‘We’re both free agents and you can sleep with who you like.’

      ‘Merci, chérie,’ he murmured sardonically, ‘but I have no plans to leap into bed with a business acquaintance I met for the first time a few days ago.’ He paused for a heartbeat and then said softly, ‘It was clear from your behaviour with Lucien Giraud this evening that you do not feel bound by the same constraints of moral propriety.’

      ‘Meaning what, precisely?’

      ‘Meaning that you were all over him like a rash,’ he growled, his face twisting in distaste. ‘You’re not even fully recovered from your injuries, and yet you waste no time trying to seduce another wealthy lover. Perhaps you are already preparing for the outcome of the DNA test,’ he sneered, ‘and are intending to sell yourself to Giraud in return for financial security for you and your child.’

      His cruel taunt pierced her heart and in an agony of hurt she brought her hand up to meet his cheek with a resounding crack. For a few seconds she stared at him in horror, and then closed her eyes as a wave of shame and nausea swept over her. She deplored physical violence, but how dared he insinuate that she was no better than a whore? The blazing fury in his eyes warned that she had pushed him too far and with a cry she shot down the hall, but had only gone a few paces before he caught hold of her and swung her into his arms.

      ‘Take your hands off me!’ She pummelled her fists against his chest and gasped when he marched determinedly towards his room. ‘If you’re planning a threesome, you can damn well think again.’ Burning up with embarrassment, she screwed her eyes shut when he strode through the door and deposited her on the bed. Surely she had plumbed the depths of humiliation? she thought wildly, convinced that Zac and his beautiful bed-mate must be laughing at her.

      But when she cautiously lifted her lashes there was only Zac staring down at her—no hint of amusement on his face, just stark, primitive hunger and an implacable determination in his eyes that sent alarm feathering down her spine.

CHAPTER SIX

      ‘I AM a patient man,’ Zac stated with a mind-boggling disregard for the truth, ‘but I’ve had as much as I’m prepared to take from you.’

      Frozen to the bed, Freya watched him activate the remote to turn off the television, before his hands moved to the belt of his robe. ‘Obviously I was wrong about Miss Joubert. I’m sorry,’ she muttered thickly. She watched him with wide, disbelieving eyes, her blood pounding in her veins when he loosened the belt and shrugged out of his robe to stand before her, gloriously and unashamedly naked.

      ‘Zac!’ She swallowed hard and tried to tear her gaze from the masculine perfection of his body. His skin gleamed like polished bronze in the lamplight and her eyes skittered down over the rippling muscles of his abdomen, following the path of dark hairs that arrowed down his taut stomach to his thighs. He was aroused—and it was the sight of his boldly erect manhood that finally penetrated the fog clouding her brain. ‘What are you doing?’

      ‘Taking what you were so blatantly offering to Lucien Giraud,’ he replied coolly, foiling her attempt to scramble off the bed by coming down beside her and pinning her to the mattress with insulting ease.

      ‘I was not.’ Tears stung her eyes at the contempt in his, but her traitorous body recognised its soul mate and molten heat surged through her veins, leaving her weak with longing. One look was all it took to arouse her to fever pitch—what chance did she stand if he touched her, kissed her…? ‘Zac, I don’t want this.’ She twisted her head frantically from side to side, her breath coming in shallow gasps.

      ‘Liar.’ His supreme self-confidence was mortifying, but when he captured her chin and slowly lowered his head, she shook with need and parted her lips to accept the savage mastery of his kiss.

      The bold thrust of his tongue into her mouth should have appalled her, but she was drowning in sensation, her senses set aflame by his potent male heat. After the lonely years apart he was impossible to resist and with a groan she slid her arms around his neck, loving the feel of his silky hair against her fingers.

      Sensing her capitulation, he eased the pressure of his mouth a little so that the kiss became a sensual, evocative tasting that brought fresh tears to her eyes. He was everything to her, the only man she had ever loved, but she meant nothing to him. It destroyed the last vestiges of her pride to accept that, even though he despised her, she wanted to make love with him one last time—a precious memory to cling to during all the bleak years ahead.

      Zac trailed his lips down her throat, his fingers tugging the ribbons at the front of her negligee before he pushed the delicate peach-coloured satin aside to expose her breasts to his hungry gaze. His eyes darkened as he brushed his thumb across her nipple and watched her pupils dilate. ‘I love the way you are so responsive, chérie,’ he said roughly. ‘There’s no pretence with you, is there? You are the most sensual woman I have ever met and I have never been able to get you out of my blood.’

      She tensed, sure that he was taunting her and expecting him to flay her with his sarcasm, but instead he lowered his head and the feel of his tongue drawing moist circles around her areola made her tremble with anticipation. He moved slowly, inexorably towards the centre until his mouth closed around the tight peak of her nipple and she gave a low cry as sensation pierced her. She arched up to him and clutched his shoulders while he teased her and tormented her, and just when she thought she could bear no more he transferred his mouth to her other breast and pleasured her until she was a limp mass of quivering need.

      ‘You want me, Freya, and, God help me, I can’t fight my hunger for you any more,’ Zac growled as he tugged her negligee down over her hips and followed its path with his mouth on her skin—trailing kisses over the sensitive flesh of her stomach to the tiny triangle of peach satin that hid her femininity from his gaze.

      It was purely physical, he reassured himself, his senses flaring when he caught the subtle, feminine scent of her arousal. The sexual attraction between them had always been explosive and, even though he knew she was a cold-blooded liar, he couldn’t resist her. Her skin felt like silk beneath his fingertips and she was so soft and pliant that he had to restrain himself from plunging into her and taking her with primitive passion.

      Drawing a sharp breath, he fought to leash his rampaging hormones as he slid his fingers beneath the lacy edge of her knickers. He pushed the material aside before he lowered his head and stroked his tongue lightly up and down the delicate folds of her femininity, coaxing and teasing until she whimpered and shifted her hips to allow him access to the moist heat within.

      Freya knew she should stop him, but her limbs felt heavy and her entire body throbbed with desire. She couldn’t do this again, couldn’t give herself to a man whose opinion of her was rock-bottom. But Zac was the only man she had ever wanted and she couldn’t deny him, not when it meant denying herself the exquisite pleasure of his possession.

      His wickedly intrusive tongue seemed intent on destroying her self-control as he brought her to the brink and she gasped, part relief, part disappointment, when he suddenly lifted his head and stared down at her. ‘You can’t do this,’ she whispered, shaken by the glittering contempt in his eyes when he removed her knickers with brisk efficiency. ‘You think I’m a cheat and a liar,’ she reminded him desperately, her eyes widening when he reached into the bedside drawer and took out a condom. He made no reply as he fitted it with practised ease and her heart thudded in her chest when he pushed her legs apart and moved over her. ‘How can you make love to a woman you despise?’ she cried jerkily, trembling with hurt and the frantic need to feel him inside her. She made one last despairing effort to halt him by beating her hands on his shoulders until he caught hold of her wrists and forced her arms above her head.

      ‘Unfortunately you’re not the only one to suffer from an embarrassing physical reaction,’ he mockingly reminded her of the excuse