she had not known what it was to feel ripped apart with inadequacy, pain and humiliation. Sebasten—and she had already forgotten his surname—was just what her squashed ego needed most, Lizzie told herself fiercely.
He took her up to the VIP room, the privilege of only a chosen few, and her conviction that he owned the club increased as she spread a bemused glance over the opulence of the luxurious leather sofas, the soft, expensive carpet and the private bar in the corner.
‘We can hear ourselves think up here,’ Sebasten pointed out with perfect truth.
Lizzie stared at him, for the first time appreciating that his more formal mode of dress had picked him out as much as his looks and height. His superb grey suit had the subtle sheen of silk and the tailored perfection of designer-cut elegance.
‘Do you own this place?’ she asked.
‘No.’ Sebasten glanced at her in surprise.
‘Then who are you that you get so much attention here?’ Lizzie enquired helplessly.
‘You don’t know?’ Amusement slashed Sebasten’s lean, bronzed features, for not being recognised and known for who and what he was was a novel experience for him. ‘I’m a businessman.’
‘I don’t read the business sections of the newspapers,’ Lizzie confided with palpable discomfiture.
‘Why should you?’
Lizzie coloured. ‘I don’t want you thinking I’m an airhead.’
A tough, self-made man, her father had refused to let her take any interest in the family construction firm. As a teenager she had told him that she wanted to study for a business degree so that she could come and work for him and Maurice Denton had hurt her by laughing out loud at the idea. But then, that he had done well enough in the world to maintain his daughter as a lady of leisure had once been a source of considerable pride to him.
‘I think you’re beautiful…especially when you blush and all your freckles merge,’ Sebasten mocked.
‘Stop it…’ Lizzie groaned, covering her hot face with spread hands in reproach.
He lifted a glass from the bar counter and she lowered one hand to grasp it, green eyes wide with fascination on his lean, strong face. Did he really think she was beautiful? She so much wanted to believe he was sincere, for she was more used to being told she was great fun and a good sport. Her fingers tightened round the tumbler and she drank even though her head was already swimming.
‘Very beautiful and very quiet,’ Sebasten pronounced.
‘Guys like talking about themselves…I’m a good listener,’ Lizzie quipped. ‘So what was the most exciting event of your week?’
Sleek black lashes lowered to partially screen his shimmering dark eyes. ‘Something someone said to me after a funeral.’
Lizzie’s soft lips parted in surprise and then sealed again.
‘Connor Morgan’s funeral…’ Sebasten let the announcement hang there and watched her tense and lose her warm colour with quiet approval. He was no fan of cold-hearted women and her obvious sensitivity pleased him. ‘Did you know him?’
Lizzie’s tummy muscles were tight as a drum but she kept her head high and muttered unevenly. ‘I’m afraid that I never got to know him very well…’
It was true: she had barely scratched the surface of Connor’s true nature, had been content to accept the surface show of the younger man’s extrovert personality, had never once dreamt that he might lie to her and cheat on her without an ounce of remorse.
‘Neither did I…’ Sebasten’s dark, deep drawl sent an odd chill down her spine.
‘Let’s not talk about it…’ Taut with guilty anxiety over the near-lie she had told, Lizzie wondered if he was aware of the rumours and if he would have approached her had he known of her previous connection with Connor.
Aware he ought to be probing for some first-hand information on the voluptuous little blonde who had ditched his half-brother, Sebasten studied Lizzie’s taut profile. However, his attention roamed of its own seeming volition down over her long, elegant neck to the tiny pulse beating out her tension beneath her collarbone and from there to the delicate curve of her breasts. By that point, his concentration had been engulfed by more libidinous promptings. Below the fine fabric, her nipples were taut and prominent as ripe berries and the dull, heavy ache at Sebasten’s groin intensified with sudden savage force. Without hesitation, he swept the glass from her grasp and reached for her.
As she was sprung with a vengeance from her introspection, Lizzie’s bemused gaze clashed with his and the scorching heat of his appraisal. She trembled, her body racing without warning to a breathless high of tension. Excitement, naked excitement flared through her, filling her with surprise and confusion. Dry-mouthed, pulses jumping, knees shaking, she felt his hand slide from her spine to the fuller curve of her behind and splay there to pull her close. She shivered in contact with the lean, tight hardness of his muscular thighs, every inch of her own flesh suddenly so sensitive she was bewildered, embarrassed, shocked.
‘This feels good…’ Sebasten husked, revelling in the way she couldn’t hide her response to him. He could feel every little quiver assailing her, recognise the hoarseness of the breath she snatched in, read the bright luminosity of her dilated pupils and the full enticement of her parted lips.
‘I hardly know you.’ Lizzie was talking to herself more than she was talking to him. But that attempt to reinstate her usual caution didn’t work. Being that close to him felt like perching at the very top of a rollercoaster a nanosecond before the breathtaking thrill of sudden descent and she was incapable of denying herself the seductive promise of that experience.
‘I’ll teach you to know me…’ Sebasten framed with thickened emphasis, the smouldering glitter of his pagan golden eyes fixed to her with laser force. ‘I’ll teach you everything you need to know.’
‘I like to go slow…’
‘I like to go fast,’ Sebasten imparted without hesitation, letting a lean brown hand rise to stroke through a long silken strand of her amber-coloured hair before moving to trace the tremulous line of her mouth with a confident fingertip. ‘So fast I’ll leave you breathless and hungry for more.’
Mesmerised, her very lips tingling from his light touch, Lizzie couldn’t think straight. He might have been talking a foreign language, for right at that instant her leaping hormones were doing all of her thinking for her. She just wanted him to kiss her. In fact, she was so desperate to have that wide, sensual mouth on hers that she had to clench her hands to prevent herself from reaching for him first and, since she had never felt anything quite like that shameless craving before, it felt as unreal as a dream.
But when his mouth found hers, teased at her tender lips with a series of sensual little nips and tantalising expertise, no dream had ever lit such a powder-keg of response in Lizzie. Suddenly she was pushing forward into the hard, muscular contours of his powerful frame, hands flying up to link round his neck to steady her wobbling knees and from deep in her own throat a tiny moaning, pleading sound emerged as frustration at his teasing built to an unbearable degree.
He reacted then with a hungry, satisfying urgency that pierced her quivering length with the efficacy of a burning arrow thudding into a willing target. Suddenly
