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  She’d been about to suggest it herself when he’d started murmuring in that low, sexy voice about making up for lost time, pressed her against the shower cubicle to nibble the pulse in her neck—and, before she knew it, she’d been flooding the bathroom instead. She’d still been draped across the bed, seeing stars, her wet hair soaking the quilt when she’d heard the rumble of his car engine as he drove off.

  It had taken her a full half an hour more, while she got dressed and put away the breakfast dishes, before she’d finally cottoned on to the fact that their mind-blowing water aerobics had been yet another of Rye’s expertly deployed distraction techniques.

  The realisation had annoyed her, frustrated her and been the final straw.

  Right, pal. Two can play at that game.

  The plan she’d come up with while repairing the extensive damage to the bathroom was both simple and satisfying and wonderfully empowering.

  She heard the clank of the bolt on the Manor’s door unlocking. A sweet and she hoped only slightly smug smile tilted her lips.

  Before meeting Rye, she never would have had the guts to show up at a guy’s house uninvited, no matter how much mind-altering sex they’d had together in the last fortnight. But being with Rye, having him want her with a power and a passion that hadn’t dimmed in the slightest in the last two weeks had given her confidence a boost that she now planned to put to good use.

  The door swung open.

  Oh, my. There is a God.

  Her pulse fluttered and her thigh muscles dissolved as she studied the magnificent sight before her. Perspiration glistened on his skin, highlighting the impressive contours of his bare chest and making the thin cotton athletic shorts cling to muscular thighs. The angry puckered scars above his left kneecap only enhanced his dangerous sex appeal.

  ‘Maddy?’ He lifted the towel slung round his neck to wipe his brow, his voice a little hoarse. ‘Sorry, I was in the gym. I didn’t hear the door.’

  Maddy’s smile widened as she inhaled the intoxicating smell of pheromones and sweat. ‘I come bearing gifts,’ she said, holding up her carefully selected bag of bribes. ‘I thought I’d cook you dinner here for a change.’ She dipped her eyelashes. ‘Then we can discuss dessert.’

  She sashayed past him, knowing the new black jeans outlined her bum to perfection. Was it her imagination or had he looked less sure of himself than usual?

  He gave a strained chuckle as he closed the door behind her.

  The feeling of power made her a little light-headed. She’d cornered him on his home turf as planned; now all she had to do was torture him until he lost the will to resist.

  Good Lord, was that a thong peeking over the waistband of her jeans?

  Rye cursed under his breath as Maddy strolled down the hallway ahead of him, swaying her slim hips like a courtesan.

  He took several deep breaths and tried to focus on the dull ache in his thigh from the punishing physiotherapy instead of the growing ache in his crotch.

  Take your eyes off her backside, King, before all the blood drains out of your brain.

  He tried to muster some irritation at the surprise visit. He’d been punishing himself for over an hour on those damn weight machines to stop from fixating on all the things he had convinced himself he should not be doing with Maddy this evening—and now she’d shot all his hard work right to hell.

  He stopped in the kitchen doorway and watched her shrug off her suede jacket to reveal a lacy little vest thing that moulded to her full breasts like a second skin. As she unloaded a bunch of plump red tomatoes from her shopping bag, her cleavage strained against the stretchy cotton.

  He bit back a groan. This had to be the road to ruin because he could feel all his good intentions crashing and burning in a tidal wave of lust.

  Unfortunately, he was finding it hard to care. One more night couldn’t do that much harm after two solid weeks of unbridled indulgence. He’d simply start weaning himself off his addiction to Maddy Westmore tomorrow.

  Best to be philosophical about it. Maybe having her here instead of in the cosy little cottage wasn’t such a bad thing after all. He’d resisted the temptation to invite her to the Manor so far because the dark oppressive house always made him feel more vulnerable, more exposed.

  And Maddy was proving to be quite the little busybody. Usually, when he made it clear he wasn’t into share and discuss, women got bored or backed off. But not Maddy. She’d been relatively easy to put off at first but, as the days passed, she’d got more and more persistent. And he’d been finding it tougher and tougher to stay focused and stop himself from telling her anything she wanted to know.

  Which would be a bad move for a number of reasons. He didn’t talk about his past with the women he dated and confiding in Maddy would be more risky than most.

  Even after their short acquaintance, he’d figured out that Maddy Westmore was a nurturer at heart. A romantic, despite the rubbish her parents had put her through. Which meant she’d be bound to put her own sentimental spin on whatever he said—and maybe even confuse an urge to confide with an urge to commit. And no way did he want her getting that impression.

  But, as Maddy pulled a brass saucepan out of the cabinet, he couldn’t deny how good it felt to see her cooking him a meal in the Manor’s kitchen. She made the place feel warm.

  She looked over her shoulder and smiled. ‘Why don’t you shower while I cook? It won’t take long.’ Her eyes sparkled with mischief. ‘Unless you want me to scrub your back?’

  He coughed and rubbed his thigh. ‘Probably not a good idea if we want to eat before midnight.’

  She gave an infectious laugh while hefting the saucepan to the sink. Then bent forward to turn on the tap. The purple lace string winked at him again.

  Damn. Definitely a thong.

  Wrenching his gaze away, he headed for the bedroom.

  Better make that a cold shower. Maddy seemed different this evening, determined, somehow—and even more irresistible than usual. He had to keep his wits about him.

  For as long as was humanly possible.

  ‘That was sensational.’ Rye leaned forward to lift Maddy’s hand off the table, his eyes heating as he kissed her knuckles. ‘Now, what was that you said about dessert?’

  The man looked relaxed and well fed and horny, Maddy thought as her heartbeat pummelled. Mission accomplished. She’d been flirting mercilessly with him all through the meal.

  Slipping her hand out of his, she got out of her chair and sat in his lap. ‘I have chocolate sauce,’ she purred, draping her arms over his shoulders.

  He gripped her waist, shifted her weight onto his good thigh. ‘Chocolate sauce but no ice cream?’

  She giggled. From the prominent bulge pressing into her bottom, she knew she had him. ‘We’re not going to need the ice cream.’

  He cursed softly, humour twinkling in his eyes. ‘Are you trying to kill me?’

  ‘How did you guess?’

  It was now or never. She’d never seen him so open or so pliable before.

  He tugged her closer to nuzzle her neck, but she pressed a finger to his lips. ‘Not so fast, King. The chocolate sauce comes at a price.’

  He nipped her fingertip, his gaze so hot she could feel her skin sizzling. ‘Name it.’

  ‘Tell me why you hate this house so much?’ she asked, keeping a stranglehold on her own hormones.

  ‘What?’ He barked out a laugh. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Why on earth do you want to know that?’ He didn’t sound wary, just astonished. Astonished was good. It would keep his guard down. And she’d already satisfied some of her curiosity. He hadn’t denied it. He did hate the house, but why?

  ‘I’m nosy,’ she said.

  ‘I noticed.’

  ‘Answer the question, King, or there’ll be no chocolate sauce with your dessert.’

  He gave his head a shake, looking impressed. ‘You are unbeliev …’

  ‘Stop whining and ‘f
ess up,’ she interrupted, lazily caressing the curls at his nape. ‘I have you at my mercy.’

  He let out an exasperated chuckle. ‘All right. Fine.’ He jostled her on his lap, hot hands stroking under her camisole. ‘I’ll answer the damn question. But, I warn you, this line of conversation has the potential to turn into a passion killer.’

  ‘I happen to know it would take a nuclear war to kill your passion,’ she teased, excitement coursing through her.

  He was finally going to let her in; the shutters hadn’t come down—and he seemed unable to make them. The surge of pleasure at the thought was almost as potent as the shiver of desire rippling up from her core.

  ‘I hate this house because it’s my grandfather’s. He didn’t want me here. And he made sure I knew it. And the loneliness stuck, I guess.’ He said the words easily, with none of his usual caution. A boyish smile edged his lips. ‘Until now.’

  The second the words slipped out, Rye tensed.

  Maddy beamed—as if she were a Sunday School teacher and he a five-year-old who’d just mastered his catechism.

  ‘Oh, Rye,’ she whispered, her expression brimming with sympathy and understanding and something that looked disturbingly like tenderness.

  Oh, crap. What the hell had he said?

  He’d been clinging onto his wits all damn evening with the desperation of a drowning man. While he’d watched her hips jiggle as she’d minced garlic and simmered spices. Through the breathy laugh as she’d whisked their meal onto the table with a flourish. During the slow-motion sweep of her tongue when she licked tomato juice off her full bottom lip. Even when she’d sat on his lap and done that torturous little wiggle. But he’d lost it completely somewhere around the mention of chocolate sauce. He scrambled frantically to get it back.

  She stroked his cheek with an open palm, sent him a soft, sexy and unbearably sweet smile. ‘Why was it so hard for you to tell me that?’

  He jerked his head back, grasped her wrist to hold her hand away from his face. ‘Don’t!’

  ‘Don’t what?’ He saw the flicker of hurt, of distress, and loosened his grip.

  Calm down. Don’t overreact. You’ve already made an ass of yourself.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he said carefully. ‘It’s not what you’re thinking.’

  ‘What am I thinking?’ she asked gently.

  Yeah, like he was going to step into that minefield.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he lied, cradling her head in his hand. ‘The only thing that matters is this.’

  Fisting his fingers in her hair, he captured her mouth. She gave a shocked little sob, but her lips parted. Their tongues tangled, duelled and then danced as she surrendered, her hunger matching his own. His breath panted out as he broke away, the erection he’d been sporting most of the night surging back to life.

  ‘Let’s go to bed,’ he said, running his hands up her sides to cup heavy breasts.

  It wasn’t a question but she nodded, looking dazed.

  Ten frantic minutes later, as her cries of fulfilment echoed like thunder in his ears, he couldn’t drown out one disturbing thought.

  How come, the more of her he had, the more he seemed to need?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  MADDY’S eyes opened and focused on an empty pillow. Which she didn’t recognise.

  She jerked upright, clasping the fine linen sheet to tender breasts and blinked at the brittle autumnal light seeping through heavy velvet curtains. Pushing her hair out of her eyes, she took in the ornate Victorian furniture, the antique silk rug on polished wood flooring.

  Rye’s bedroom.

  A sigh of distress eased out as the disturbing memories of the night before came tumbling back.

  The flirting, the teasing, the dark thrill of desire, the giddy buzz of anticipation. And then the throb of emotion closing her throat and the sting of tears as she had glimpsed something she was never meant to see.

  What had she been thinking last night? Why had she been so determined to find out more about Rye, to get to know him better? This was a casual fling. And yet something had changed yesterday. Something that shouldn’t have changed. All because of her smug, stupid determination to trick Rye into talking about his past.

  She shook her head, trying to forget the bitter humour in his voice when he’d told her about his grandfather. And she’d clearly seen the lost, lonely, traumatised boy he’d been.

  Slinging back the quilt, she climbed out of the big bed.

  Don’t do this, Maddy. Do not do this. He’s not a little boy; he’s a grown man.

  He’d proven that pretty conclusively when he’d taken her to bed afterwards. As for that strange connection she’d felt as they’d made love? A figment of her overdeveloped Miss Fixit gene. It had to be.

  Rye King did not need her to heal him, or to look after him. Or to rescue him. He’d made that pretty clear too from the closed off look on his face when she’d clumsily tried to offer comfort.

  She dashed around the room, gathering her clothes up off the floor.

  Wasn’t this what she had always done in the past—believed guys needed her and then got herself trodden all over for her pains? She wriggled into the figure-hugging jeans, pulled her camisole on and finger-combed her hair. She was supposed to be breaking the pattern with Rye, not reinforcing it.

  She tiptoed down the hallway to collect her jacket from the kitchen, careful not to look at the remnants of their meal.

  As she approached the front door, she heard the low murmur of Rye’s voice coming from his office. He was probably busy with his conference call. She should give him a quick wave and then leave. And would act natural while she was doing it if it killed her.

  Practical and pragmatic. Confident and independent. That was the new Maddy Westmore. Not some silly twit who had got herself into an emotional pickle of her own making.

  She edged the office door open and spotted Rye standing with his back to her, the speaker phone on the desk. His stance was stiff and unyielding, his broad shoulders tense and his hands buried in his pockets as he talked to whoever was on the other end of the line. She hesitated, not wanting to disturb him. But not wanting to leave without saying goodbye. It would look suspicious. She didn’t want him to know last night had rattled her—she firmed her chin—even a little.

  ‘I can get over to California next week,’ Rye said curtly to his acting CEO John Clements, the thought not appealing to him one bit.

  Over the past fortnight he’d been building up his involvement in the business again. Had realised how much he’d missed the daily challenges, the make-or-break decisions, the thrill of being in charge of a business he’d built and watched grow from the ground up. No wonder he’d been in the doldrums after the accident. He’d let so much of what was important in his life slide while he’d been licking his wounds. But as much as he’d enjoyed getting back into the thick of things again, he had no desire to resume the punishing travel schedule that had once been such a huge part of his working life.

  ‘I can check the operation out at The Grange myself,’ he continued, knowing it was the only solution that made sense. ‘Last time I spoke to Zack, though, he didn’t seem nearly as concerned as you are about performance.’

  ‘With all due respect, Mr King,’ Clements said in an ingratiating voice, ‘that was over six months ago, and the King Xtreme franchise at Mr Boudreaux’s resort hasn’t reached the projections we were all hoping for in its first year.’

  ‘Which is why I’m flying thousands of miles to sort it out,’ Rye snapped.

  He eased out a breath. He was tired; he’d been up half the night, unable to sleep, feeling oddly unsettled as Maddy’s soft, warm body snuggled against him in the old bed.

  ‘Will you be returning to London after the California trip?’ Clements asked.

  He ploughed his fingers through his hair. London. Yet another decision he didn’t want to think about this morning. ‘Probably.’ He couldn’t hold his return off much longer. ‘I’m fully rec
overed now.’ Or as recovered as he would ever be. ‘There’s nothing keeping me here.’ Or nothing he shouldn’t be able to handle, he reminded himself.

  He ended the call to Clements, feeling dispirited. The faint tap had him swinging round.

  ‘Hi, sorry to bother you.’ Maddy stood in the doorway, looking rumpled and sexy in last night’s jeans and vest, her face pale.

  A surge of longing hit him. He shoved his hands back into his pockets.

  For God’s sake, King, isn’t it about time you put a chokehold on your appetite?

  ‘Hi, you didn’t bother me,’ he said.

  Although she did. He’d been having regular sex—make that non-stop sex—for sixteen days on the trot now. But he couldn’t seem to stop behaving like a hormonally charged adolescent boy whenever she was around.

  ‘Um, I should shoot off.’ She took a step back, jerked her thumb over her shoulder. ‘My shift at the café starts in a couple of hours. I need to shower and change.’

  Shower here. With me.

  He clamped down on the thought. Stopped himself from asking. Maddy was proving to be more of a distraction than he had anticipated. Last night was proof of that. He still couldn’t believe he’d let her seduce him into telling her things he’d never told anyone.

  Time to stop letting his libido take charge. ‘Okay. Thanks for dinner last night.’ He paused, forced the words out. ‘I probably won’t make it over tonight.’

  She nodded, an unusually bright smile on her face. ‘No problem.’

  And with that she was gone.

  He listened to the muffled thump as the front door closed behind her. Glancing towards the window, he resolutely resisted the urge to cross the room and look through the curtains.

  Things had got way too intense last night. And he suspected she knew it too, from that stilted and unbearably polite conversation. A night apart would do them both good. They needed a cooling off period.

  He had at least a week before he had to make the trip to California, by which time he planned to be ready to cut any lingering ties to Cornwall.