disappointed, though the feel of a moist and gentle tongue on those highly sensitised buds was oddly soothing. But, when a hand covered her knee and began sliding upwards, any sense of soothing disappeared, every nerve-ending instantly on alert.
Salome always wore suspenders, and she gasped when Mike’s fingertips moved from the top of her stockings to feather across the soft flesh of her inner thigh. But he didn’t linger there for long, his fingers homing in on the heat that was already searing its way through her panties. Her breathing ceased as he stroked the damp silk, tension and suspense at what he would do next holding her frozen.
There was no hesitation. His fingers slipped underneath, where he began to explore her with devastating intimacy. Salome could no longer hold her breath; the air punched from her body in gasps as she sucked in again and again for oxygen. Her heart was going at fifty to the dozen, blood pounding in her brain. She could feel her muscles clenching tightly inside, and while what he was doing was incredibly exciting, she began to get a glimpse of what it might feel like if he was really inside her, filling her, loving her.
‘Mike,’ she groaned.
She had forgotten his mouth was busy at her breast till he abandoned it and the air stung the moist bud.
‘Yes, I know,’ he muttered thickly. ‘I know. I will...’
Suddenly, lights blazed overhead, the floor of the elevator shuddering beneath them as it lurched into an upward movement.
Glazed green eyes looked up into smouldering black ones, horror dawning instantly. Salome’s head jerked up from the floor, her stricken gaze staring down at her semi-naked body, her dishevelled clothes, her knees, raised and evocatively apart. Mike was still leaning over her, his face full of recent passion and immediate frustration.
She threw at him what could only have been interpreted as a reproachful and damning glance. Immediately, that impassioned black gaze hardened, his cynical expression challenging her to deny that she had been a willing participant in all that had happened, and almost happened.
Salome knew she couldn’t, which only increased her shame and self-disgust. But mixed with the feelings of humiliation was a righteous and indignant anger, for, in her opinion, he had indeed taken advantage of her and the situation. Hadn’t she practically begged him not to kiss her?
Yet thinking about that first kiss now, and how quickly she had surrendered to his will, sent a humiliating heat to her cheeks. How could she have allowed such liberties, in a lift, of all places? As she uttered a tortured groan, Salome’s right hand shot out to give him a hard push in the chest, and he fell backwards. ‘Get away from me, you...you...’
‘Cad?’ he suggested drily as he levered himself from the floor.
A sob of fury broke from her lips. ‘That word’s too good for you!’ she cried, her hands scrambling to do her jacket up over the gaping blouse, her only thought now being that at any second the lift would stop and those doors might open on to shocked eyes. Feeling sick to her stomach, she catapulted herself upwards, stumbling when her right heel buckled under her.
Mike steadied her with a hand on her arm, but she wrenched away, sending him another vicious glare. ‘Don’t you touch me!’
His eyebrows shot ceilingwards in mock surprise. ‘Really! A minute ago you were begging me to. It just shows you the fickleness of some women.’
‘You know damned well I would never normally let you even touch me, let alone...let alone...’ A shudder of remembered disgust reverberated through her already shaking body. ‘You took advantage of me! You...you knew I was in a vulnerable state about Ralph and that woman. You probably deliberately got me tipsy, all the time planning to...to—’
The lift reached the penthouse floor and the doors whooshed open.
No one was there.
Sighing, Salome sagged back against the wall, relief flooding through her. She couldn’t have borne for anyone to see what her shame kept telling her must be obvious, with her tangled hair, her bruised mouth, her over-bright eyes, her disorganised clothes.
Though any relief was short-lived.
‘You were saying?’ Mike drawled. He had moved to stand with his back against the open doors, his arms folded, his harsh gaze merciless in its derision. Looking at him now, Salome found it incredible to believe that a minute ago she had been wanting him. At this very second she hated him, hated him for being able to make her feel what he made her feel, without love or caring. It was cheap and horrible and tacky. And almost beyond comprehension!
She had known earlier in the evening she was madly attracted to him, had even fantasised about making love to him, but the reality had been much more shocking. The speed of her surrender; the intensity of her feelings—the madness of it all!
All Salome could think of to explain it was that she must have changed, sexually. She had read of women like that, who became more interested in the physical as they matured, who started looking for sex for sex’s sake, whose taste in men became overtly pointed in one direction. Her mother was certainly evidence of that theory, she thought bitterly. Perhaps she had indeed inherited the same weakness. It had only taken a man like Mike to bring it out in her.
An awful thought surfaced. Perhaps she had projected this new self to him this afternoon. Perhaps that was why he had asked her out in the first place, because he sensed this new vulnerability and frustration. Her mind flew to those earlier moments today when she had been agitated and not known the reason. Now she had to accept that she had probably been wanting sex even then!
Salome shook her head, appalled. This was the last straw, being plagued by urges she couldn’t control. Ralph’s treachery had stripped her of most of her self-esteem and respect. Now it seemed she was going to finish the job all by herself!
No way, she thought with a desperate burst of defiance. No way!
Dragging in a deep breath, Salome picked up her handbag and tucked it under one arm. She righted her case and, without so much as a word or a glance, marched determinedly from the lift.
With a predatory swiftness Mike’s hand shot out to grab her wrist, swinging her round, making her drop both bags as she almost fell. ‘I’m not letting you off that easily,’ he snarled, hauling her upright in front of him. ‘Oh, I realise you weren’t letting me, Michael Angellini, make love to you in there in the dark. I was just a male mouth, a male hand, a male body. And now that the lights are on you’ve changed your mind. But that’s too bad, darling, because I haven’t changed mine. You’ve damned well teased me for years, and you’re not going to do it again tonight!’
She stared at him, green eyes widening with shock. And indignation. ‘“Teased ” you?’ she repeated, stunned. ‘I’ve never teased you!’
He gave a snort of disgust. ‘Oh, no? Then what would you call the way you acted every time you came into my restaurant? There you’d be, half dressed and all over your husband like a rash, yet all the time making sure I was noticing what you were doing, flicking those seductive green eyes at me, that luscious mouth of yours always curved back in a sweet but treacherously knowing smile. Did it give you a kick to go home leaving me actually aching with frustration? Well, did it?’
The hand on her wrist tightened to yank her hard against him, his head dipping till his mouth was terrifyingly close. ‘You knew I wanted you from the first moment we met,’ he grated out in a low, hard voice. ‘You used that fact to play a cat-and-mouse game with
