King's Ransom. Jackie Ashenden

      Hell. What did I have to do? Pull a gun? A knife? A fucking bomb?

      ‘So how exactly do you ruin someone sexually these days?’ she went on, her eyes alight with interest. ‘It’s a bit nineteenth century, if you know what I mean. Virginity isn’t the big thing it used to be.’

      ‘That’s it?’ I dropped my finger from her mouth, ignoring the warmth that lingered on my skin. ‘That’s your response?’

      ‘Should it be different?’ A crease appeared between her brows. ‘If you’re going to ruin me or whatever—’ she waved her hand as if the ‘whatever’ was negligible and not the threat it very much was ‘—I’d like to know how you’re going to do it. Seeing as how I have a vested interest and all.’

      ‘Screwing you, that’s how I’ll do it,’ I growled, my patience starting to run even thinner than it was already, hoping that would quell her.

      ‘Oh, sure.’ She shrugged, very much unquelled. ‘Screwing goes without saying. But I’d still like to know how that ruins me.’

      Shit, this woman was either simple or...she was playing me.

      I was beginning to suspect it was the latter and if that was the case, she’d regret it. I could play that game better than she ever could.

      ‘You’re a virgin—’

      ‘Hey, how do you know that?’

      ‘Interrupt me one more time and I’ll give you back to your father’s men.’

      Her mouth closed up tight. Interesting. She really didn’t want to go back. I filed that fact away for future reference.

      ‘As I was saying,’ I went on. ‘You’re a virgin and your father has been guarding that very jealously for a long time. You may not think it’s important, but it is for him because if he wants to make alliances with potential friends, he’s going to use you and your pretty hymen to do it. But how will that work when his virginal daughter has been in the hands of his enemy? Make no mistake. The ruin I’m talking about will make you mine and mine completely, and once you’re mine you’ll be useless to anyone else, including him.’

      Emotion shifted in her eyes, gone so fast I wasn’t sure what it was. Not fear, something more complicated than that.

      This girl seemed open and sincere, but maybe she wasn’t. Maybe there was more to her than there appeared.

      The curiosity I thought I’d crushed earlier smouldered back into life, making me want to know exactly what more there was.

      I’d always enjoyed a complicated woman—I was a man who got bored easily—and I hadn’t had complicated for longer than I cared to remember.

      But no. This wasn’t about what I wanted and never had been.

      Imogen took a soft breath, the fabric of her strapless white dress pulling tight across a pair of quite frankly beautiful little tits. The dress moulded to her generous hips too, outlining her rounded thighs.

      Nice. Very nice. Not usually my type—tall, athletic women handled me better than small kittens like this one. But she was soft and strokeable, and undeniably sexy. What would she be like in bed?

       Fucking wildfire.

      Another pulse of heat burned through me, making my cock twitch.

      ‘So what does that mean exactly?’ She frowned. ‘Am I a threat or a tool for you?’

      ‘Both.’ I ignored the heat in my groin. ‘I want your father to leave Sydney. Only when he’s gone will I let you go.’

      She glanced down at where her hands clutched at her seat belt, a lock of pale hair falling out from underneath the cap I’d put on her head and down over her shoulder. It gleamed like watered silk in the light coming through the windows. Pretty.

       What would it feel like coiled around your finger?

      Nothing. Because I wasn’t going to touch it.

      ‘That still doesn’t really explain this ruin thing,’ she said. ‘And you haven’t said what it involves exactly.’

      ‘What do you want? A fucking diagram?’

      A flash of green glinted from underneath her pale lashes. ‘Actually, that would be super helpful. Especially since I don’t know anything about fucking.’

      The heat I was trying to ignore burned a little hotter. Was she...flirting with me? Toying with me? If so, she was playing a dangerous game.

      This wasn’t a date and I wasn’t some harmless boy desperate to kiss her hand. I was the oldest and most feared son of one of Sydney’s worst criminals, and I had things in my past that would wipe that expression off her face. That would make her look at me as if I was the devil himself.

      Maybe it was time she learned that this wasn’t a fun night out and that I wasn’t some tame house cat she could stroke, who’d curl up in her lap. I was a wolf and I’d eat this Red Riding Hood alive.

      ‘You really want to know?’ I leaned right into her space, getting a kick out of the way she had to press herself against the window to keep the distance between us. ‘Are you sure?’

      Her eyes went wide, her sulky, pouty mouth opening. And for a second I thought I saw fear there, but then it was gone and something else glittered in the green depths of her gaze.

      Yet more excitement.

      Shit.

      ‘Seriously, I am so sure.’ Her voice was on the edge of husky. ‘Tell me, Ajax. I’d really like to know how you’re going to ruin me.’

       CHAPTER FOUR

       Imogen

      HE WAS VERY CLOSE, inches away. His broad shoulders blocked out the streetlights coming through the opposite window of the van, his body in that pristine white shirt and black suit trousers, a hard wall of muscle in front of me.

      And his eyes. Electric blue, so vivid against his olive skin. Fascinating in a way I couldn’t describe.

      He was so compelling. He made my heart shudder behind my ribs for reasons I didn’t understand.

      This talk of being ruined... It was all I could think about.

      Since I’d been taught at home by tutors, I’d never gone to high school, never dated. I’d never had a teenage crush, except once, on a guy I’d seen through the window of the car while I was on my way somewhere. I’d constructed a whole set of dreamy fantasies around him for at least a week until I’d lost interest in the whole idea.

      If I’d had any girlfriends I’d have discussed my lack of a sex life with them. But I didn’t even have girlfriends.

      What I did have, though, was an insatiable curiosity about pretty much everything, including all the things I wasn’t allowed to have.

      Such as sex.

      I’d learned how to get around the blocks Dad had put on my Internet years ago and I’d looked stuff up. Sexy stuff. Enough to have an idea of what I might like when it came to men.

      One thing I hadn’t realised, though, was that looking at sex on a computer screen was very different to having an actual man right in front of you, looking at you so intently it made you want to burst into flames.

      Like me, right now, with him.

      ‘S-so,’ I stuttered, unable to keep quiet, my heart racing. ‘You know, how does it happen? Do I have to take my clothes off? Do you touch me or—’

      ‘I don’t have to touch you to ruin you, little one,’ he said in that dark, deep voice I felt right down low