“I want…” Her voice was shaky under his burning stare. “I want you—that.” She pointed at his engorged dick, which he was holding lightly in the curve of his fingers. “When I shouldn’t. When I should walk away and leave you and your dick behind.”

“But you’re not going to, are you?” His voice was smooth and dangerous.

She looked up, her eyes large, a current of distrust shimmering through her senses. “I should,” she whispered.

“I wouldn’t let you anyway.” A languid rise of his hand, a flick of his index finger. “Show me, Katherine. I want to see if you’re wet.” He frowned when she didn’t move. “This isn’t about what you want, Katherine. It’s about what I want. You know the rules.”

She suddenly felt cold under that still blue gaze; her hands started trembling.

“Jesus.” His voice was soft. “You’re scared?” He looked at her, his face rigid, his jaw tense. “This is too fucked up.” He nodded, his gaze infinitely weary. “There’s the door. Get out. I’m sure someone has carried in your luggage by now.”

A heartbeat later, she shoved herself up on her elbows, met his gaze straight on. “I’m not scared of you.” There was that faint air of defiance, as if she were daring him to throw her out. “Just stop being a prick. Enter the human race.”

He smiled faintly. “Easy to say.”

“Well, dial it down a notch. Can you do that? I’m not going to piss all over your boyhood mementos. I’m here for only a few days.”

“You never know,” he said, because deference was unnatural to him, especially with sex. “It might be more than a few days.”

“Oh, I know all right,” she said, unblinking, deference equally meaningless to her. “Now, can we get this show on the road?” She pointed at his dick.

“Not a problem.” His smile was brilliant. “Any more directions? I wouldn’t want to make any blunders,” he murmured, his voice softly insolent.

“One last direction,” she unwisely said. “Make me feel—”

Hot with temper, he was on top of her before she’d finished speaking, slamming into her because she could piss him off damn near better than anyone.

Stunned, she sucked in a breath. “What the hell are you doing?”

His erection barely past the entrance to her body, her taut, unyielding flesh strangling the head of his dick, he gazed down at her, his lips curled in an icy smile. “I’m trying to fuck you, baby. I’m not getting much help. Should I order in some lube?”

“Get. Off. Me,” she said, tight and angry. “Right now.”

“No way.” His reasons for refusing were enigmatic and territorial. The territorial part he understood; that was the part where he fucked her.

“How about some minimum recognition of who you’re screwing then?” She spoke with cold intensity, because he hadn’t moved and it didn’t look like he would, the head of his erection pulsing against her tense flesh.

“I know who you are.” He shut his eyes, blew out a breath. “You want an apology? I apologize.”

“How about a real apology? You know, one that isn’t completely devoid of feeling.”

He stared at her sullenly. “You don’t want much, do you?”

“Jesus fucking CHRIST!” she cried in full revolt. “I’m not doing this with a man who doesn’t give a shit who’s in his bed. Get OFF me!”

He raised his brows. “Calm the hell down. Take a deep breath. You want a better apology? Is that what you want? I’ve been apologizing left and right lately, so one more can’t matter,” he said. “Not that it seems to have done much good.” His gaze dropped, then lifted again. “When I’m getting this kind of resistance.”

She could feel him studying her and wondered in the ripening silence if she’d ever reconcile her mindless longing with rational judgment when it came to Dominic, if she ever could say no and mean it, if she ever could look at his dark, brooding beauty and not want him. “Give me a minute,” she said. To see the error of my ways, to regain my sanity. “In the meantime I’ll take that apology.”

When he didn’t answer, she surveyed the beautiful face with the critical gaze, the rigid line of his jaw. “Who’s resisting now?”

“I apologize, Katherine.” His voice was drained of emotion.

“You’re not good at this are you?”

He sighed. “You’re a fucking witch.” He wasn’t even sure why he was engaging in this skirmish other than the fact that Katherine had upended his perfectly comfortable, thoroughly selfish life—the one where he didn’t deal with his feelings.

She smiled sweetly. “Thank you. You’re equally appealing.”

“So can we close down this lesson on manners?” he asked very quietly, using every ounce of self-control he possessed after seeing that smug smile.

“Certainly.” Another sugar-sweet smile.

Fuck it. He thrust in fast and hard, as if he were furious or crazed or under so much accumulated pressure he was blind to the critical nuances of the most minimum courtesy, as if issues of forgiveness and apology had never been mentioned. As if violence alone wiped away smug smiles, rebalanced the power equation, burned away his perpetual hard-on.

Kate’s shriek rang out in a piercing wail.