A Sudden Engagement. Penny Jordan

a man satisfying his physical desire for another woman and everything to do with a particularly cruel and degrading form of revenge, and all the fighting spirit drained out of her, a suffocating sense of helpless inevitability overwhelming her.

      She was dimly aware of Drew Chalmers dropping her ungently on the bed, and then locking the door, before he came towards her.

      ‘How did you know I would be here tonight?’ he asked casually, as the bed depressed under his lean length, the fine fabric of his pants brushing against the silky slenderness of her legs.

      ‘I didn’t.’ Kirsty recoiled instinctively from the intimate contact with his body, tensing as his gaze narrowed on the pale triangle of her face.

      ‘You’re overdoing things,’ he warned her softly. ‘And it won’t work. That frightened virgin act went out years ago—if it was ever in,’ he added cynically. ‘You’re a fraud and a cheat,’ he added softly. ‘You made damned sure you could use circumstances to suit your own ends and did so without a qualm, but when the tables are turned you don’t want to take the nasty medicine, do you? Well, little girl, it’s high time someone showed you that sometimes you have to be forced to take it for your own good!’

      It was useless trying to tell him that she had had second thoughts the moment she entered the bedroom of his suite, or that she had, in Shakespearean terms, decided upon her plan of action in a mood best described as ‘pot-valiant’. Now, when the effects of the wine and cocktail had completely worn off she lay rigid with terror on the bed, unable to decide what was worse—her present situation or the humiliation of the one she would find herself in when Drew Chalmers inevitably discovered the truth.

      What would he say if she told him that she was a virgin? Call her a liar, she decided bitterly, willing the weak tears she could feel blocking her throat not to fall, but once again the hatefully drawling mockery of his voice told her that he had guessed when she turned her head slightly and it was ruthlessly turned back with fingers that gripped her chin unkindly and held it while the moon silvered her face, revealing her expression to him while his was concealed from her.

      ‘Crying? Crocodile tears and very pretty, but alas, completely unconvincing. Do you know what the young innocent you’re trying to portray would actually do in your circumstances? Well, she certainly wouldn’t simply lie here, all passive resistance and melting tears,’ he told her brutally, ‘she’d be terrified.’

      His brutality broke through the strange calm that had descended on her and she struggled to evade the crushing grip of his fingers on her chin, her eyes darting defiance at him as she stormed bitterly, ‘How do you know? Do you make a practice out of brutalising inexperienced virgins? Is that how you get your kicks? Is that.…’

      Her breath was cut off by the sudden fierce pressure of his mouth, as it moved impatiently over hers, stifling her ability to think, swamping her with a terrifying sensation of panic, of swirling blackness and a bottomless pit into which she was being relentlessly drawn.

      The tension held her body stiff with rejection; she gulped in air as his head lifted, arms braced against his chest to push him off.

      He was breathing heavily, a dark glitter in his eyes, as he said unevenly, ‘The way I get my kicks is by having a warm, responsive woman in my arms, and by God, that’s what you’re going to be, if I have to spend all night making you respond to me!’

      He wanted her to respond to him. Kirsty couldn’t understand it, unless it was part of his plan to humiliate her by first arousing her and then rejecting her. She had read about such things, and wondered at them, because so far none of her boy-friends had aroused any feelings in her even approaching such an intensity of feeling, and she was beginning to wonder if they existed only in works of fiction.

      ‘I never will,’ she told him stubbornly. ‘I hate you!’

      ‘Hatred is akin to love, or had you forgotten?’ he mocked her, turning her on to her side, one arm curved round her so that her breasts were pressed against the fine silk of his shirt, the hard contact oddly disturbing.

      Suddenly it became difficult to breathe normally. Strange sensations vibrated through her, her senses relaying to her an awareness of him that frightened and alarmed her. She could smell the warm maleness of his skin; feel the hardness of sinew and bone beneath the palms she had pressed against his shoulders to fend him off.

      ‘Why don’t you simply relax and enjoy yourself?’ The self-assured drawl sent shivers of reaction across skin already far too sensitised to his proximity. The arm constraining her moved, and Kirsty breathed a sigh of relief, suddenly suspended as she felt his fingers tugging at her nightdress.

      Her instinctive protest froze on her lips as the dark head bent towards her, cool male lips teasing the soft tendrils of hair curling round her forehead, brushing lightly against her skin and evoking a reaction that made her quiver softly. By the time she realised that Drew had eased her nightdress from her shoulders and it was too late for her to do a thing to prevent him, because whichever way she moved, trying to stop him, he outmanoeuvred her, his sudden harsh, ‘Look, if you want me to rip the damn thing off you, just say so,’ freezing her into a tense stillness, her protests dying in her throat as the nightdress was tugged downwards over her hips and discarded to lie in a pool of silk on the floor.

      No man had ever seen her in only her underwear before, and she was all too conscious of the rounded smoothness of her breasts against the sculptured lace of her satin bra and matching cami-knickers suddenly glaringly provocative, and colour swept her body as she saw that Drew was looking at her, studying the slender lines of her body with an expression in his eyes that made her heart stand still before racing erratically, its jerky, uneven pace catching at her breath.

      ‘Beautiful!’ The husky timbre of his voice shivered across her nerve endings, the smoky sensuality darkening his eyes from grey almost to black and making her tremble beneath the explicit appraisal of his glance.

      When he bent his head, sweeping aside her hair to touch his lips to her throat, exploring the delicate shape of her ear, Kirsty experienced a small explosion of panic, followed by the undeniable knowledge of her body’s physical response to a touch so sure and knowing that she marvelled that she could ever have imagined she could withstand it. The touch of his hands on her bare arms and midriff triggered off tiny pinpricks of pleasure, each one shivering through her, shocking her afresh. He seemed to know exactly where to kiss and touch. Violence she could have withstood, but not this subtle, sensual attack on her senses, this slowly seductive destruction of all her barriers until her breasts ached to know the possession of those skilled male hands, her lips parting involuntarily, as his tongue teased their trembling shape, the skilled stroking of his hands along her body, making her forget what had originally brought her to his suite, her body in the grip of a feverishly mounting desire that both shocked and fascinated the tiny corner of her

      mind which had managed to stand aloof from his expert assault on her senses.

      ‘That’s better,’ she heard him mutter approvingly, raw sexuality underlining the words as he deftly unfastened her bra, and added throatily, ‘much, much better,’ his eyes feasting on the swelling curves he had just exposed.

      She should feel shame, but she didn’t, Kirsty marvelled. Some wild, wanton part of her she had never dreamed existed positively revelled in the hungry intensity of his gaze, but even so, she wasn’t prepared for his husky groan or the sight of the dark head buried against her breasts, his breath ragged and warm against the tender flesh as lean fingers cupped her rounded softness.

      ‘God, but you’re beautiful! But you already know that, don’t you?’

      Kirsty trembled as the coaxing fingers stroked tormentingly over the hard arousal of her nipple, her breathing ragged and shallow at the sensation the sensual caress aroused. Deep down inside her something seemed to be flowering into life, a weak, yielding sensation, curling through her stomach, the hands she had lifted to push Drew away in protest, hesitating until the rough texture of his skin against the acutely sensitised tip of her breast made her fingers curl in mute protest into the softness of his hair, a small cry smothered deep in her throat.

      ‘God,