The Complete Red-Hot Collection. Kelly Hunter

guys had taken her out for a congratulatory drinking session afterwards, because apparently she had what it took, and by the time Kate had got home, she’d been so tired she’d fallen into bed.

      She’d slept for a full three hours before thoughts of Scott had niggled her into wakefulness. And then had come the night-long tossing and turning she was learning to expect.

      Fractured sleep, painful dreams, tortured thoughts. Wondering how Scott had felt, knowing she was on the water with his best friend. Rethinking every look, every word from Friday night. Trying to figure out what was behind the anger Scott refused to unleash—was it the way he felt about her, or residual mistrust from the eight-year-old Chantal/Brodie situation? Hoping he hadn’t—please, please, please—voided their contract by touching another woman.

      After all that it was no wonder she was devoid of ideas.

      Arabian nights, pirate and tavern wench, boss and secretary—all of which she’d considered—just seemed stupid.

      How she wished she’d never thought of writing fantasies into the contract. She hated Play Time. Hated it!

      So much so that in a fit of pique—yes, pique!—she decided to wear her most complicated dress. Buttons and zips and ties, with an exotic fold or two. An origami nightmare of a dress. Because Scott deserved to have to fight his way through to her for a change, rather than have her laying it all out for him to take.

      He’d said the first time they met that for her he could get a little ‘gladiatorial’—so let him prove it by fighting his way past her dress! In fact, she would make it harder. She would blindfold him! And what was more, she would give him a time limit.

      That was a good enough Play Time for her.

      Scott buzzed on the dot of noon—he was nothing if not punctual—and she let him into the building without waiting to hear his voice.

      ‘We only have an hour,’ Kate said, all brisk and businesslike as she opened the door to him, holding two silk scarves at the ready.

      His eyes narrowed. ‘Why?’

      ‘Nothing to do with Brodie, if that’s what you’re wondering.’

      ‘I’m not wondering. Are you wondering?’

      ‘About Brodie?’

      He just looked at her.

      ‘Oh, do you mean am I wondering about you and the hens on Friday night?’ she asked, and eked out a tinkling laugh. ‘No. You would have texted me, wouldn’t you, if anything had happened?’ She was forcing the panic back. ‘And anyway…well, pacta sunt servanda, right? Agreements must be kept. And as I recall, that was your sticking point. Fidelity.’

      ‘Pacta sunt servanda,’ he repeated. ‘You do remember how that legal talk turns me on, don’t you?’

      Her breath caught in her throat. ‘Yes.’

      ‘Is that why you’re doing it?’

      ‘The more turned on you are, the faster we’ll be, right?’

      He didn’t like that—she could tell by the way his whole face tightened. He walked past her and laid a flat parcel on her dining table.

      ‘Stand still while I do this,’ she said, coming up behind him.

      And, although he stiffened, he let her tie the scarf over his eyes.

      ‘Play Time,’ she announced.

      The set of his mouth was grim as she led him carefully into the bedroom, over to the bed. ‘Sit,’ Kate said.

      But Scott did more than sit. He flopped onto his back, lying there as though he didn’t give a damn what she did to him, and Kate hesitated, wondering if he didn’t want her today. If he didn’t want her any more, period.

      Pulse jittering, she looked at his body, laid out on the bed for her, wondering how she would be able to bear that…and saw that he was hard. She hadn’t even touched him and he was aroused—whether he wanted to be or not.

      It took the edge off her sudden panic to know that whatever his I give up attitude was about, it wasn’t a lack of desire. She could work with that. She would make this so good for him he wouldn’t be able to pretend he didn’t want her.

      ‘I’m going to blindfold myself now,’ she told him, knowing how disorientating it must be for a control freak like Scott not to know what was happening. ‘No peeking today—by either of us. And no speaking either.’

      ‘No—?’ Short, tense pause. ‘No speaking, Kate?’

      ‘No. Just…feeling…’

      Scott’s lips tightened but he said nothing.

      And then Kate tied her own scarf and felt her way onto the bed. She lay next to him, turned to him, kissed him. A long, lush moan of a kiss. Not being able to see, she was even more conscious than usual of the uncompromising firmness of his mouth as he stayed stock-still for her to explore. The warmth of it, the taste, the way it fitted so perfectly against her own.

      Slowly the tension left him, and at last he kissed her back, his tongue sliding into her mouth, and then he was taking over, reaching everywhere. Thank God.

      A moment later his hands were wandering over her fully clothed body. Traversing the cotton of her dress. Pausing, testing, assessing the fastenings, the barriers.

      Kate’s task was easier. She slid her hands under his T-shirt, smoothing them over his chest. She loved his chest. The breadth and strength of it, the texture of his warm skin, the spread of hair. The picture of him, flat on his back on her bed, was so strong in her mind…but the fact she couldn’t see it with her eyes somehow made the drug of touching him more potent. As if she could reach right through his chest and into his heart with nothing but the pads of her exploring fingers.

      A push, a nudge, and his T-shirt was up, over his head, off. She checked quickly that the scarf was still secure around his eyes, and then her hands moved to his jeans. Unbuttoning, unzipping as his breathing turned harsh and laboured. She loved the way his breaths came like that when he was excited, almost past bearing but trying to control it—control himself, control everything.

      She straddled him, facing his feet—which might have felt weird if they hadn’t both been masked, but now felt perfect. Her core was on his warm skin, just above the band of his boxer briefs. Just that was enough for her to long to have him inside her. She started pushing his jeans down his legs, hands stroking as she leaned further forward with each push. She loved his legs. Long, hard, strong, the perfect amount of hair. Down, down, down. And then—stop.

      She’d forgotten about his sneakers. Well, blindfolded or not, she could undo a shoe. She fumbled with the laces, wrenched the sneakers off, threw them. They landed on the floor with a soft thud. Next she pushed his jeans off, threw them too. Started to turn around.

      But Scott kept her exactly where she was with a hand on her back. She got the message and stopped, on her knees, one either side of his hips. Stayed…waited. What was he going to do?

      And then the hand on her back was gone and both Scott’s hands were under her dress, reaching between her spread thighs, snagging against the French knickers she’d put on today before she’d come up with a plan that meant he wouldn’t actually see the frothy pink lace.

      He didn’t seem to care about the lace, because his fingers were impatient, almost rough, as he yanked the knickers aside, his fingers sliding into her drenching wetness, in and out, until her breaths were nothing more than rasps and she was trembling. She felt so hot, so lush, aching as those fingers continued to dip in and out of her while the fingers of his other hand joined the action, circling her clitoris, precise, constant, inexorable.

      She hadn’t removed his underwear, but that didn’t stop him thrusting hard against her bottom as he circled and slipped and probed every millimetre of her sex until she was coming in