Part 6 (1/2)

His mouth closed over hers.

It was a deep, sensual kiss. He did not intend it to be otherwise. It was, after all, all he would have of her ...

Kat was drowning. Drowning in the sea of sensation that had closed over her head, her mind-every particle of her being. The drowning went on and on and on, dissolving her, so that there was nothing left of her, only the incredible sensation exploding in her. From away, words formed ...

So this is a kiss ...

She had never been kissed before. Never allowed a man near her. Never.

And now ...

Now she was being taken-her mouth by his-her senses overwhelmed, and she had never known that it was possible to feel like this, to feel such sensation ... such incredible, intoxicating arousal, such melting of the flesh ...

There was no more reality-only this. This endless, intoxicating sensuality.

And then his mouth was lifting from hers. She could only gaze mindlessly, dazed, into his eyes-those night-dark eyes. They flickered over her and she felt heat deep inside her. His hand still held her nape, and without its grip she would have swayed, collapsed, for there were no bones left in her body, no thoughts in her mind, no consciousness of anything other than this-this obliterating, consuming now that had taken her into a world she had never known existed.

He was looking down at her. His eyes were still veiled, unreadable.

Then he spoke.

'That was good, Kat,' he said. 'Very-grateful...' His voice was a drawl, like talons over hardest stone.

He dropped his hands from her and stepped back. She swayed, but he made no move to steady her. There was incomprehension in her face-more than incomprehension-and something about it fed his anger. She was trying to speak, he could see, but there was nothing he wanted to hear. Nothing he wanted from her-except what he could not have. What she had made impossible.

His eyes steeled. Time to finish this.

'But, despite your spectacular body, Kat, and your eagerness to bestow it upon me in grat.i.tude for advancing your career-' his gaze washed over her like acid '-I must disappoint your ambitions.'

She stared. She had been drowning-drowning deep, deep in an ocean of sensuality that she had never known existed, never dreamt existed. And now suddenly she had been beached, was gasping for air, cold sucking at her.

Oh, G.o.d, what had happened? What had happened? What did I let him do to me? How could I have-? How could I?

Her thoughts were rags, torn and shredded. What was he saying to her? She had crawled to him-abased herself to ask, beg for the job she had to have ... But what had he done? What had she let him do? What was he saying ...?

She fought for comprehension.

It came-like a killing blow.

'I have no interest, Kat-' his voice razored '-in bedding wh.o.r.es. And what else is a ”grateful” woman offering her body than a wh.o.r.e?'

Time stopped. Rushed up from the past, searing across her brain. Words were spearing into her-bald, typed notes, impinging themselves on her retinas.

... known to work as a prost.i.tute ...

The pit beneath her feet opened. Yawned like the mouth of h.e.l.l to swallow her up, take her to that place of d.a.m.nation which had swallowed up her mother, and her mother's mother.

But it would never, never swallow her!

She could feel the rage. Feel the fury. Boiling up in her. Boiling over.

'Don't you dare call me that!'

He laughed. Harsh. Contemptuous. 'You stand there, at this hour of the night, offering yourself to me to show your grat.i.tude if I give you back that modelling job, and yet you deny that you are whoring yourself to me?'

Her face contorted, rage ripping from her. 'It was you! You moved in on me!'

'To teach you a lesson! That no woman makes use of me!' His eyes skewered her, pinioning her on lasered points. 'Get out of here. Now.'

Emotion boiled in her-rage, blind rage, at him. Saying that to her! Doing that to her! And then, like a punch in her guts, the other reality returned. The sick, terrifying reality of why she had come here ...

Oh, G.o.d! Mike was still downstairs-waiting for her.

Waiting with his razor, his mad, drug-fuelled sickness.

Terror exploded in her. She flew at the man standing there, calling her such vile things, ripping from her the one thing that she was desperate for-desperate! Her face contorted, her fists pummelling impotently at the steel wall of his chest as she pounded at him with all her strength, fury and venom spitting from her.

'You offered me that job!' she hurled at him, ripping words from her twisting mouth. 'The agency told me the offer was there! They told me the fee and the schedule and everything! And then you yanked it back again! What do you think you're playing at, you arrogant jerk?'

He thrust her back as if she were nothing more than a rag doll. She stumbled backwards, impacting the sideboard, clutching at its surface to get her balance, lungs pounding, fury burning through her. Her hand closed over something-she didn't know what, didn't register it, registered only that in the intensity of her anger she was panting, breathless, her head a maelstrom of emotion.

'You absolute b.a.s.t.a.r.d,' she said in a shaking, vehement voice. 'I crawled to you! And that's what I got for it! To be called a wh.o.r.e!'

He cut her vicious diatribe with a single utterance, eyes black. 'Get out, Kat-or I'll get Security to do it.'

His voice was like ice. Annihilating her. Throwing her out-with nothing. Nothing to keep her safe from that sick psycho downstairs. Nothing to keep his razor from her face ...

Her hands spasmed, terror convulsing her fingers, and as they did she felt the shape of what her right hand had closed over.

It was a watch.

Like some kind of nightmare replay, she heard Mike's voice in her head. Just bring me the lot, OK? Cash, jewellery-whatever ...

Slowly, without any conscious will, she tightened her grip on what she held. Time and reality slid away. Her mind wasn't moving. Nothing was moving. Her chest felt as if it was going to explode, as if she could not draw breath.

As if from the bottom of a deep, deep well she watched Angelos Petrakos stride to the door and yank it open. And as he did so, she turned. She saw-her eyes not registering, her mind suddenly totally blank-saw her hand move, saw her other hand reach for her clutch bag further along the sideboard, saw herself slip the wrist.w.a.tch inside-the wrist.w.a.tch of a man so rich it must be valuable-closing the flap of the bag to conceal it.

'Out-now.'

Angelos Petrakos's voice knifed into her.

She turned back. She had stopped existing. Someone else had taken over. Someone who was walking towards the door blindly, unseeingly. It wasn't her any more-not her clutching her bag to her chest, where it burned against her like a flaming brand, walking past Angelis Petrakos, who had turned her boneless with his touch and then called her a wh.o.r.e. It wasn't her-it wasn't her. It couldn't be her. It couldn't be ...

It couldn't be her walking across the silent, deserted corridor to step into the empty lift and plummet down, down, down, the weight of the bag clutched against her like a stone-it couldn't be her ...

Inside her head, a voice was yelling. Take it back! Say something-anything! But take it back. Or leave it here-in the lift!