At No Man's Command. Melanie Milburne

its catwalk sway of hips and pelvis. His body throbbed with such raw longing he considered plunging himself in the snow outside to cool off.

      Everything about her turned him on. Her wilfulness, her naughty pouts, the way she tossed her hair over her shoulders like a flighty filly tossed its mane. The way her grey eyes looked at him knowingly, smoulderingly, with that come-and-get-me-I-know-you-want-to steadiness as if she could sense his lust for her lurking, thickening him beneath his clothes.

      James muttered an expletive and turned away from the window. It was well past midnight and he hadn’t eaten. He would kill for a glass of red wine but bringing alcohol into a situation like this was asking for the sort of trouble he could do without right now. Falling into Aiesha’s honey trap was exactly what she expected him to do. It was what every man she set her sights on did. She collected men like trophies, the richer and more powerful the better. He was just another prize to tick off her list. One she had wanted a long time. It was her unfinished business—the seduction of the son and heir to complete her set—the father and now the son. He would be discarded like yesterday’s news as soon as she proved what she wanted to prove.

      James could only hope the fervid interest in their relationship would die away once some other couple was targeted. He loathed being besieged by the press. It brought back the cringeworthy memories of the days after Aiesha had sold her story. The cameras had been set up outside his parents’ London home for over a week. He hadn’t been living at home at the time but that didn’t stop the barrage of attention. He was set upon at his apartment in Notting Hill. Every day microphones were thrust in his face as he left for work, asking him for comments on his father’s behaviour. They followed him everywhere, even during work hours. The intrusion was so bad at one point that one of his most important clients had taken his business to a rival firm.

      It had taken him this long to build up trust with a good clientele and now Aiesha was back and up to her usual mischief.

      James took Bonnie out for a last pit stop before doing the rounds of turning off the lights downstairs. He came to the sitting room, where the door was slightly ajar, the muted light of the side-table lamps creating a soft V-shaped beam across the floor of the hall.

      He pushed the door open to find the coffee table in front of the sofa littered with the remains of a snatch-and-grab meal: an empty wine glass, a side plate with cheese fragments and a browned apple core on it, a scrunched-up paper napkin, an empty yogurt container and a sticky teaspoon, a trail of crumbs. Typical. She was swanning about the place like the lady of the manor, expecting everyone else to pick up after her. He wasn’t running a hotel, for God’s sake. Who did she think she was, leaving his mother’s sitting room in such a state?

      His gaze went to the sofa and found...Sleeping Beauty.

      That was exactly what Aiesha looked like. She was lying on her side facing the fire that had burned down low in the grate, her cheek resting on one of the velvet scatter cushions, her arms tucked in close to her chest and her slim legs curled up like a child’s. Her hair was tousled and loose about her shoulders, one curly tendril lying like an S on her cheek. In sleep she looked innocent and vulnerable, far younger than twenty-five.

      The eight years difference in their ages suddenly felt like a century. Make that an entire geological period.

      Should he wake her?

      No!

      James looked at the fire. It would make too much noise getting that going again. The room, along with the rest of the house, was centrally heated but set on a timer. He could feel the slight chill in the air as the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece ticked its way to 1:00 a.m.

      His gaze went to the mohair throw rug draped over the back of the wing chair. Should he or shouldn’t he? He debated with himself for another thirty seconds as he watched her sleep. Her chest rose and fell, her soft mouth opening slightly as her breath came out on a sigh. Her eyelids with their spider-leg-long lashes fluttered and her forehead puckered as if something she was dreaming about had disturbed her. But after a moment or two her forehead smoothed out and she burrowed deeper into the sofa cushions like a dormouse curling up for winter.

      James waited another half a minute before stealthily tiptoeing across the carpet like a burglar to get the throw rug—mentally rolling his eyes at the ridiculousness of his caution—and brought it back to gently cover her with it.

      It was as if he had dropped a plank of timber on her.

      She suddenly leapt off the sofa and struck out with her fists, catching him on the side of the nose in a glancing blow that made stars explode behind his eyes.

      James swore and, stumbling backwards, cupped his hand over his throbbing nose, the blood dripping through his fingers to the carpet at his feet. Pain pulsed in sickening waves through his face, his skull and his stomach. He swayed on his feet as he fought against the dizziness as a school of silverfish floated before his gaze.

      Aiesha reeled back from him, speaking through her hands that were clasped over her mouth in stunned horror. ‘Oh, my God! Did I hurt you?’

      ‘No,’ he said through clenched teeth as he reached with his other hand for his handkerchief to stem the flow of blood. ‘I have spontaneous nosebleeds all the time.’

      Her eyes were still as wide as her discarded dinner plate. ‘I’m sorry. I—I didn’t know who it was.’

      He glared at her over the wad of his handkerchief. His nose was still pulsating with eye-watering pain as it hosed blood. What was she thinking, swinging at him like that? She was the intruder, not him. ‘Who the hell did you think it was?’

      Her teeth chewed at her lower lip, her gaze falling away from his as she backed out of the room. ‘Erm...I’ll go and get you some ice...’

      * * *

      Aiesha held a hand against her juddering heart as she stumbled to the kitchen. The shock of waking to see a dark shape looming over her had made her react on instinct. Her primal brain hadn’t had time to recognise it was not some predatory lecher after a quick feel. Her instinctive reaction to hit out was something she’d learned from a young age, having to dodge the inappropriate attention from her mother’s collection of unsavoury partners. It was why she never spent the whole night with anyone. Ever. It was too awkward explaining her restlessness...or the nightmares. The last time she’d had a nightmare she’d wet the bed.

      Try explaining that to a lover.

      Aiesha looked at her reddened knuckles. If the pain throbbing in them was any indication, James was going to have a shiner by morning, if not sooner.

      Her heart was not quite back where it belonged when she came back with a therapeutic ice pack she’d found in the freezer.

      James was sitting on the sofa she had fallen asleep on earlier, his head tilted back, the strong column of his throat exposed. He opened one eye to look at her. ‘That’s a mean right hook you’ve got there.’

      Aiesha averted her gaze as she handed him the ice pack. ‘I took up boxing classes a couple of years ago. It’s great for fitness. You should try it.’

      He winced as he pressed the pack to the bridge of his nose. ‘Somehow, the thought of thumping an opponent until they lose consciousness doesn’t appeal.’

      She bit her lip again. ‘Does it hurt terribly?’

      He gave her a look. ‘That was the intention, wasn’t it?’

      Aiesha walked over to the remains of the fire and gave it a futile poke. She could sense his watchful gaze resting on her. He’d found her asleep. Off guard. Vulnerable. Had she given anything away while sleeping? Murmured anything? Revealed anything of the turmoil of her past?

      She tamed her body language the way she’d been doing since she was eight years old. Show no emotion. Show no fear. ‘I don’t like people sneaking up on me.’

      ‘I was trying to make you comfortable. You were lying asleep in front of a dead fire. I was worried you might be cold.’

      Worried? Ha. When had anyone been