The Dare Collection December 2019. Clare Connelly

seems to placate him. He nods, moving towards the door. ‘Then I won’t take up more of your time. You’ll let me know, one way or another?’

      His hand curves around the handle. He’s leaving. I swallow back an urge to shout the truth at him.

      ‘Count on it.’

       Count on it.

      Her words jam against me, hard, holding me completely still. I’m back in Sydney, in the Intimate Rooms.

      ‘That’s what you want?’ I asked her.

      ‘Count on it.’

      Count on it. Common enough, I guess, but no.

      I spin around, catching her staring at me. Except it’s impossible to tell because of those damned glasses she’s been wearing.

      Suspicion moves quickly to certainty.

      I shut the door and stride across the room, and it’s so unexpected that she doesn’t even have time to react. I stand before her for a second, and now I look at her lips and I kick myself for not realising sooner.

      I lift a hand to the glasses and pull them from her face before she can comprehend what I’m doing.

      Those eyes, eyes that have stared into mine as pleasure made her wild with insanity and desire, look back at me, heavy with surprise now. Those lips that I have tasted and dragged between my teeth form a perfect ‘O’.

      ‘Miss Anonymous,’ I drawl, and before she can answer I lift my hand around to the base of her skull and pull her head forward. I’m kissing her, kissing her first with exploration to test my theory, even when I know I’m right. And as I feel her familiar mouth, taste her sweetness, my kiss turns hard and heavy with censure for trying to hide from me, for lying to me, for being about to let me walk away.

      She makes a strangled noise into my mouth and I swallow it; my body, denied the pleasure of hers for nine long nights, throbs with a need that will not be suppressed.

      And whatever impulse had prompted her to try to get rid of me, it’s gone now, as her hands lift urgently, pushing at my shirt, running it up my body, so her palms connect with my naked chest, her fingertips finding their way back to paths she explored last weekend.

      ‘You were going to fucking hide from me.’ I curve my hands around her ass, lifting her onto the edge of her table, spreading her legs. The skirt she’s wearing splits with an almighty sound and she laughs, that husky sound having been imprinted on my memory in some strange way.

      ‘It was meant to be one night, we agreed,’ she says, tilting her head back so I can run my mouth down her throat, my teeth lightly nipping at the flesh on her collarbone. I feel her tremble beneath me and I have no time for the sensual seduction I thought I’d be engaging in. It’s been nine nights and I don’t think I’ve gone that long without sex since—

      Well, since ever.

      I reach into my back pocket, pulling my wallet out and flicking it open to find a condom without breaking our kiss. I move higher between her legs; the skirt splits more. I don’t fucking care.

      I undo the button of my jeans and slide the zip down, freeing my rock-hard, aching cock. I shift for a second, just long enough to rip the packet open and push the condom down my length, and then I lift my head to stare at her for a long second, my eyes laced with a thousand and one feelings—anger, annoyance, heat, need, mockery, impatience.

      ‘You were going to fucking let me walk away just now?’

      She bites down on her lip and in response moves forward, her hands against my chest, her face tilted, her lips seeking mine. I deny her that kiss, instead lifting her off the edge of the desk, using my hands to push the scrap of lace at her core aside, and sliding her onto my cock, stifling a moan as her muscles squeeze me so tight I convulse a little.

      I take one step across her office and push her back against the thick, cold glass, bracing her there as I push into her hard. The eyes that meet mine are the same—exactly the same. And she knew it! Those fucking glasses.

      Anger that she wanted to hide from me crests in my gut and I kiss her, pressing her head against the glass as my body takes command of hers. She is crying my name into my mouth, over and over, her nails digging into my shoulders, her heels pressed to my back.

      Her muscles tighten, her whole body vibrates and her cries get louder and faster. At the moment she comes I let go of my own control, I stop fighting this, exploding with a guttural roar, pushing myself hard against her as I come buried deep inside her; finally feeling this release and giving myself over to it completely.

      It is fast. It is animalistic. It is bliss.

      I hold her, locked between the glass window and my frame, my body weight keeping her where she is, unwilling to put distance between us yet.

      I push my head up, my cock still inside her, and fix her with an assessing gaze. ‘What game are you playing, Imogen?’

      Her throat moves as she swallows. ‘Game?’ It’s husky, the southern accent forgotten, and her voice just as I remember it from Sydney.

      ‘Does fucking members without their knowledge give you a thrill?’

      Her spectacular, memorable eyes widen. ‘No!’ Her denial is sharp and fierce. ‘I’ve never done that before. You were the first. And the last.’

      Given my own attitudes to sex, it feels faintly chauvinistic that I’m relieved at that, but I am. I don’t like the idea that she uses her position to find her way into bed with members.

      ‘Why did you lie to me?’

      ‘I didn’t.’ She drops her eyes. I shift my hips, my dick already growing hard again, surprising her so she jerks her attention back to me quickly.

      ‘We agreed to a night. That’s the deal we had. It’s all I wanted.’

      My laugh is spontaneous and deep, a sound of disbelief. ‘You didn’t want this?’

      I have the satisfaction of seeing her cheeks flush pink. ‘I…shouldn’t have.’

      ‘Why not?’

      She shakes her head, and slowly she shifts before me, her expression going from sexy deer in the headlights to the force of nature I know her to be—the woman who set all this up off her own back, who’s created an unbelievable empire.

      ‘Because I meant what I said in our messages. I just needed to have sex.’ More heat in her cheeks but she doesn’t blink away from me now. ‘I hadn’t been with anyone in ages and I felt like I’d forgotten what intimacy is like.’ She lifts her shoulders. ‘I wanted to get laid. And let’s face it, you’re somewhat of an expert in the meaningless sex department.’

      She’s right. I’ve made one-night stands an art form and my reputation makes sure everyone knows it. So why does it piss me off royally that she says it so casually?

      I make no apologies for the way I live my life. This is who I am. I’ve tried to fit myself into a different mould before, to be Lord Rothsmore In Waiting, and it was an abject failure.

      At least when I get back to England this time I’ll have a better idea of who I really am.

      ‘You weren’t supposed to come looking for me,’ she says.

      I roll my hips once more, enjoying the look of heat that shifts over her features. Desire flares between us, a flame too bright and searing to ignore.

      ‘Why did you come looking for me?’

      That’s a great question. The thing about one-night stands is that they’re always one night. That was what we’d agreed. I’m the one who wants to shift the goalposts, to make this something else.

      Except, it’s not as if I’d