that who you are rushing off to return to now?’ he asked. ‘One of your many lovers? No doubt you are keen to make up for lost time, ne?’
Cassie now understood what it felt like to be hoist with one’s own petard and it wasn’t particularly comfortable. ‘There is just the one person I care about now,’ she answered.
There was a short but tense pause.
‘Do you intend to marry this man?’ he asked.
Cassie brought her eyes back to his. ‘No, I do not.’
She saw the disdain in his gaze as it warred with hers, and, although he didn’t say the words out loud, she could hear them ringing in the stiff silence.
Whore.
Slut.
Jailbird.
‘I want to see you again,’ Sebastian said with a masklike expression. ‘Here, tomorrow, for lunch, and do not think about saying no.’
Cassie felt her eyes go wide and struggled to control her escalating panic. ‘I-I’m working at the orphanage t-tomorrow,’ she stammered. ‘We’re short staffed as it is. I can’t just breeze out for lunch.’
His stance was implacable. It was clear in the months since his father had died Sebastian had become accustomed to having each and every one of his words obeyed. ‘I will have my personal secretary notify the head of the orphanage that you have an official appointment at the palace.’
Cassie gave a tight swallow. ‘What will the press make of that if they hear about it?’ she asked.
‘They will not hear about it from me,’ he said. ‘If on the other hand you get it in your pretty little blonde head to inform them yourself, I have already warned you what will happen if you do.’
She glared at him in fury. ‘You think you can blackmail me, don’t you?’
He gave her an imperious smile. ‘If you want your bracelet back, then, yes, I am sure I can blackmail you to do whatever I want.’
Cassie clenched her hands into fists. ‘You bastard,’ she ground out bitterly.
‘Careful, Cassie,’ he warned her silkily. ‘I don’t think a charge of common assault will go down too well right now with your parole officer, will it?’
Right now Cassie felt as if it would be worth it just to slap that arrogant look off his too-handsome face. ‘I am going to ask you one more time,’ she said in a cold, hard tone. ‘Give me back my bracelet.’
He held up his hands above his head. ‘Come and get it,’ he said, nodding towards his left-hand trouser pocket.
Cassie felt her heart skip a beat at the challenging glint in his dark eyes. She pulled in a breath, and with a hand that was nowhere near as steady as she would have liked, slipped it tentatively into his pocket. Her belly quivered as she felt the distinctive swell of his body against her searching fingers, but there was no bracelet. She pulled out her hand and sent him a fulminating look.
‘Try the other one,’ he said with an inscrutable smile. ‘I must have forgotten which side I put it.’
Cassie sucked in another furious breath and a little less cautiously this time dug her hand into his right pocket, but before she could locate the circle of pearls his hands came down and held hers against his now pulsing full-on erection. Her eyes flew to his in shock, the erotic feel of him even through the layers of fabric making her heart race out of control.
‘How much do you want your bracelet?’ he asked, his eyes now almost black with diamond-hard purpose.
She felt him surging against the palm of her hand and her stomach turned over, every pore of her flesh crawling with a desire so overwhelming she was sure he could sense it. ‘What exactly are you asking me to do, Sebastian?’ she asked in a brittle tone. ‘Get down on my knees and service you like the whore you think you can make me?’
His pupils flared, making his eyes even darker, like bottomless pools of ink. ‘If anyone has made you a whore it is yourself,’ he said. ‘I know the game you are playing, Cassie. You deliberately left that bracelet behind this evening, did you not?’
Cassie threw him a withering look. ‘That really would have been casting pearls before swine, now, wouldn’t it?’
He pulled her hands away from his body, bracketing her wrists either side of her body in a movement so sudden she felt every last breath of air rush out of her chest. ‘I must say I like this new hard-to-get game you are intent on playing,’ he said, pressing his hardened lower body into the softness of hers. ‘It makes me all the more determined to have you.’
Cassie’s gaze went to his mouth, her stomach doing a quick flip-flop as she realised his intention. But instead of pulling out of his hold, she pressed herself closer as his mouth came down to hers.
It was an angry kiss, a kiss of built-up resentment and bitterness, but even so she couldn’t stop herself from responding to it. His tongue didn’t ask for permission to enter her mouth, it demanded it, thrusting between her trembling lips with an intention that was as deeply erotic as it was irresistible. His mouth ground against hers, drawing from her whimpers, not of protest but of pleasure. Her body moulded itself against his, seeking his hardness, thrilling in the feel of his arousal, her heart racing at the thought of the dangerous game they both were playing.
One of his hands slid beneath her track-suit top, his warm palm rediscovering the weight of her bra-less breast. Cassie’s belly contracted when he took her nipple between his thumb and index finger, the gentle pinch and pull caress making her breathless with desire.
Her hands went on their own journey of rediscovery, pulling his T-shirt free so she could feel his skin beneath her palms. She felt the heavy thud of his heart against her hand, before she took her hand lower to feel the shape of him through his track pants. She heard him groan as she stroked his length, and she increased the speed and pressure of her caresses.
He lifted his mouth off hers to place it hot and moistly over her breast, sucking on her, not too hard, not too soft, but enough to have her senses spinning madly out of control.
He pulled her hand away from his body and looked down at her with his eyes blazing with desire. ‘So it is the same for you as it is for me,’ he said. ‘Six years has done nothing to change the chemistry between us.’
Cassie wanted to deny it, but her hand was still tingling where she had touched him, so instead she said nothing.
He brought up her chin and pressed a brief hard kiss to her mouth. ‘You can have your bracelet back tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I will give it to you after we have lunch together.’
‘That’s blackmail.’
Sebastian gave her a nonchalant smile. ‘No,’ he said. ‘That is a promise.’
He watched as her mouth tightened. ‘My bracelet is valuable to me, but not enough to lose my self-respect,’ she said. ‘If I sleep with you again it will be because I want to, not because I have been forced to.’
Sebastian held her fiery look for a moment. It was a sweet salve to his pride to know she still wanted him. He could take her
