She heard his deep, primal growl as if from a distance. He continued to rub her for a moment. She was still coming—harsh shudders of bliss slashing through her—when he removed his hand. He folded her knees toward her shoulders and leaned down over her, using his body to fix her bent legs in place flush against her torso. He began to fuck while she still keened in climax.

For a few seconds, his demanding possession interrupted her bliss. It was too much, really, having him pound so high and hard inside her. It took her breath away. But then the friction caused by the swollen, defined cockhead rubbing previously untouched flesh began to mount. It was like he was building a fire in her.

She moaned and stared up at him helplessly. He looked down at her, his handsome face so rigid, his eyes so wild it was almost frightening, like truly being taken by a force of nature. His strokes became longer, even more forceful. She bared her teeth in the face of the intense pressure and mounting pleasure, groaning, and lifted her head off the pillow, glancing downward. The staff of his cock glistened with her juices as it moved like a piston in and out of her, his pelvis smacking against her briskly in an arousing, erotic rhythm that quickened by the second.

She fell back, gasping against the pillows. “Oh God, the condom.” He was taking her so forcefully, so thoroughly, that the bottom rim of the rubber was coming down off his thick cock.

“I know it,” he ground out in a strangled voice, never pausing his powerful thrusts. “It’ll hold for as long as it takes. I won’t last. Not in this sweet little pussy, I won’t. I’m going to come.”

She squeezed her eyelids tight at his harsh, erotic words. He slammed into her and circled his hips, once again overfilling her, grinding their sexes together. She screamed in excitement and felt his cock swell and jerk inside her. His shout was blistering. Raw. She lay back on the pillows, panting in sharp excitement and vague discomfort, watching him as he began to come. Every muscle in his lean, ripped body was contracted tight, rippling and jerking. Spellbound, she realized she’d been willingly depriving herself of his beauty. She reached for him, suddenly wild to caress and stroke what seemed like miles of smooth skin and delineated muscle. But he made a ragged sound and pushed down on her shins, stilling her action.

He rode her while he ejaculated. The intense friction made her eyes cross. She joined him in climax, too overwhelmed by his stark possession to stand outside the flames.

“Fuck. I can feel you coming,” he groaned, sounding beyond miserable.

“No,” she yelped when he withdrew.

It was like abruptly having ice water poured on her steaming skin, the deprivation of his flesh was so severe. He fell down on the mattress, panting, his pelvis cradling her hip, his damp cock throbbing on her thigh.

“I had to. The damn condom isn’t going to stay put. I don’t want to spill in you,” he said at the same time that he slid his hand between her thighs. She cried out as her climax ramped up to its original potent blast as he rubbed her slick clit rapidly. Her eyes closed as she shook in pleasure.

“No, open them,” he ordered roughly.

She lifted her heavy eyelids. Both of his hands resumed moving, and she realized he stimulated both of them at once.

It struck her as overwhelmingly intimate, to stare into his fierce gaze while they both shuddered in mutual pleasure . . .

. . . to stare into the familiar face of a virtual stranger.

Chapter Three

He sagged onto the bed next to her, his head falling into the pillow. As she lay there and felt his harsh breathing near her ear, slow and even, her body seemed to liquefy, melting into the mattress. He was warm and solid. Her drowsiness paradoxically alarmed her somehow.

She’d just had wild, impulsive sex with someone she’d just met. She could count using one finger the number of times she’d done that in her life—and that time on spring break during grad school didn’t really count, given the uncustomary amount of tequila involved and the completely forgettable sexual encounter itself. She’d despised herself afterward for putting herself in that unsavory situation, vowing to never allow herself to lose control in that arena of her life again.

But tonight hadn’t been some drunken encounter with a cocky yet fumbling college kid. This had been a lightning strike of desire with none other than Ian Noble’s brother, the very man she was supposed to guide and soften for a potentially lucrative business deal. A deal that was certainly important to her boss, because Kam was family.

Ian.

A vision of Ian’s laserlike, blue-eyed gaze and impenetrable expression flashed into her mind’s eye. It set off a prickly feeling of anxiety that broke through her delicious lassitude. Realizing her hands were still above her head, she cautiously lowered them, glancing sideways at Kam all the while. Was he sleeping? His breathing had certainly become slow and even.

He reached up and grabbed one of her lowering hands. She started at his touch.

“I thought you were sleeping,” she said softly, her voice thick with relaxation.

“I’m awake.”

She turned her head fully and saw his stare on her. He certainly was. His facial muscles looked relaxed in comparison to how rigid they’d been when he’d been inside her—pounding, pulsing, demanding—but his gaze was sharp and alert. He kept her hand in his grasp and moved it to her waist, his arm draping her.

“You may have fried half my brain cells just now, but I don’t want to sleep. Not yet,” he muttered thickly in his rough, French-accented voice. Her heart throbbed back to life. Had there been a thread of suggestiveness in his tone? He moved the pad of his thumb over her wrist in a gentle quest. “I wanted you so much, I never got a chance to appreciate you. I was too busy combusting.”

She swallowed, feeling the weight of her pearls on her Adam’s apple.

“I certainly felt appreciated,” she assured.

A smile flickered across his lips as he continued to touch her wrist. “Still, it was hardly a savoring experience. More like a gorge-fest.”

She returned his grin, warmed by the laughter in his eyes. The pad of his thumb moved subtly on her wrist.

“Are you feeling my pulse? When you touch me there?” she murmured. Their faces were only inches apart. She could clearly see the black ring that surrounded his irises and flecks of midnight in the silvery-gray of his eyes. His eyelashes were surprisingly thick for a man, further highlighting his magnetic gaze.

“Yes.”

“You’re using your knowledge of biology, the same knowledge you used to make your biofeedback mechanisms, in order to read me?”

“The human body has a language all its own,” he said, still feathering her pulse with his thumb. “It’s usually more honest than the kind that comes out of a person’s mouth.”

“What’s my body telling you right now?” she whispered, unable to stop herself from asking.

His gaze moved slowly down over her chest. She felt his stare on her breasts like a touch. She shifted restlessly an inch or two, increasing her contact with his body. Her shoulder pressed against a dense pectoral muscle. She inhaled deeply, making her breasts rise. Her nipples tightened beneath his weighty stare.

“The leap in your pulse along with the increase in your muscle tension could mean anxiety. Or it could mean you’re heating again.” He glanced up into her face and caught the burn in her cheeks. His gaze had grown heavy-lidded, somehow both satiated and aroused at once. Heating again. How aptly put. “In combination with the rest of the signs,” he said with a quick glance at her erect nipples, “I’d opt for the latter, though. Am I right?”

She licked at her lower lip nervously. “I think it might mean both anxiety and . . . the other thing.”

He released her wrist and cupped her waist, his large, warm hand and long fingers stretching from back to belly.

“What are you anxious about?” he growled softly.

“I don’t think Ian would approve of this, for one.”

His nostrils flared slightly. “He sent you to me, didn’t he? What right has he got to complain if we like each other? What’s it got to do with him?”

“You know it’s not that simple,” she chastised.

A frown pulled at his mouth. “Right. Let’s consider what Ian would want in this situation, by all means.”

He released her suddenly and rolled off the bed. She started at his abruptness—not to mention his simmering sarcasm—but then immediately became distracted by the image of him almost entirely naked, save for his jeans and underwear bunched around thighs that were long and solid as young oaks. Hadn’t Ian told her that Kam had built a sophisticated workout area in his underground home that took into account his intuitive understanding of the subtle mechanisms and physics of the human body? Ian was supremely in shape, but had wryly told Lin after he’d joined Kam in one of his workouts that he practically hadn’t been able to move for three days afterward.

Kam’s back was beautiful—all lean, defined muscle, a narrow waist that angled up to broad shoulders. He had more color in his skin than Ian, a swarthy gilt. There didn’t appear to be an ounce of fat anywhere. Lin supposed he wouldn’t have had much of a chance to acquire any, living a solitary, meager existence for so many years in the country. Arousal flickered in her sex at the vision of him carelessly jerking his underwear over his ass. The skin there was as smooth as his back, the buttocks powerful, round, very . . .

. . . grab-worthy.

She’d been mad to follow his demand and keep her hands out of the action.

“Bathroom?” he asked gruffly, breaking the settling spell of lust . . . and disappointment.

“Oh, there,” she pointed at a door to the right.

He came around the foot of her bed. He hadn’t buttoned his fly. As he walked, his hand cupped his exposed cock from below, sliding off the condom. He wasn’t as rock hard as he had been earlier, but his penis was still beautiful—shapely and slightly distended from his body.

Heat rushed through her, as powerful and stunning as it had been the first time. When he disappeared behind the bathroom door, she blinked and looked around her bedroom as if seeing her surroundings for the first time that night. She glanced anxiously at the closed bathroom door. Was he pulling himself together in there? Washing and fastening his clothing? She didn’t want to be sprawled on the bed with her skirt shoved up around her waist, her thighs spread, vulnerable and exposed when he returned. She sat up and dove for her sweater. When the door to the bathroom abruptly opened again, she hastily pressed the silk knit over her breasts, feeling like she’d been caught red-handed.

He stepped across the threshold, pausing when he saw her. A shadow of disgust—or was it disappointment?—crossed his bold features. He readjusted his jeans and fleetly fastened his pants, his ridged abdomen flexing. He hadn’t been pulling himself together in there. She watched helplessly as he stalked across the room and grabbed his wadded shirt and jacket off the floor.

“Are you . . . are you going?” she asked.

“Looks as if,” he said shortly, untangling his clothing.

“I didn’t mean you . . . that is . . . I’m sorry,” she fumbled. Why didn’t she know what she wanted in this situation? It was as if she couldn’t interpret her own desires anymore. Maybe it was best if he did go. Surely she’d regret her impulsive behavior. She rarely went to bed with men and never at the first meeting, which was no great shock. No one had worse luck with men than Lin; she must hold a world record for her number of abysmal first and only dates. But her judgment was especially lacking in Kam’s case. First of all, he wasn’t a date. He’d been a work assignment. Secondly, he was Ian’s brother, for God’s sake. Lin was always fastidious about keeping the boundaries intact between her work and her personal life. Not that she had much of a personal life outside of work and Ian, but . . .

Surely she’d also regret seeing Kam Reardon walk away in that moment as well.

You were right before. I was heating up. I shouldn’t have brought up Ian. That’s not for us to think about now.

“What I don’t get,” Kam said as he drew on his shirt, taut muscles flexing in a jerky, impatient motion, “is the limit.”

“The limit?” Lin asked slowly, his words interrupting the flow of her mental rehearsal for talking him into staying. His flashing, furious gaze made her pull the sweater tighter over her naked torso.