LITMIR.BIZ

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or not, he’d been a fool to take the wedding gown off of her. The image of her beauty was dangerous. To him.

      He should have known she’d be wearing tarty white lingerie for her wedding night to the baron. Pretending to be a virgin—just pretending, because he’d obviously been bedding her for some time. No man would resist Rose’s charms, her soft blond beauty, her lush body. They must have been lovers from the moment the man had plucked her from that restaurant in San Francisco.

      Växborg was guilty. But was Rose? Had she known about Laetitia?

      It doesn’t matter, he told himself harshly. Whether or not Rose had known about his marriage, she’d been eager enough to marry the baron for the sake of his money, his title and his snakelike charm. Everyone had their price. Xerxes learned that long ago. Feelings were a commodity like everything else.

      And yet Xerxes’s eyes traced unwillingly over her beautiful, near-naked body.

      Rose’s cheeks were red as she looked down, breathing rapidly. She started to cover herself with her slender arms. Then she stopped, gripping her hands into fists at her sides. Slowly, she lifted her chin, her eyes glittering at him in fury.

      What a woman, he thought in amazement. Even now, completely in his power, when any other woman might have been prostrate with fear, Rose defied him.

      “You owe Lars a wedding dress now,” she said in a low voice. “As well as a diamond tiara. And a bride.”

      With dignity, she bent to pick up the dress, then used the tattered remnants to cover herself.

      Why did he want her like this? How could this mere girl, this waitress, have such an overwhelming effect on his body?

      Setting his jaw, he reached for her. She looked up with an intake of breath, but instead of ripping the dress from her hands, he helped her cover herself with it. He slowly moved his fingers up her naked arms. Her skin was smooth and warm.

      She looked up at him in bewilderment. Her lips parted. Her full, delectable pink lips, so ripe for a man’s plunder.

      Suddenly, Xerxes knew what he had to do. He knew just the way to learn the truth about her innocence or guilt.

       He would kiss her.

      If she were truly the heartless gold digger he’d first believed, she would not only allow his kiss, she would try to lure him into a full-scale seduction. To evade punishment, she would change allegiance, wanting to win him over to her side.

      If not…

      Well. Xerxes would put her to the test.

      The fact that he could think of nothing but kissing her had nothing to do with this. It was a scientific experiment. Satiating his desire would be just a fortunate bonus.

      After he’d replaced the torn dress over her shoulders, Rose gripped the gaping front bodice together with her hand and glared as him with hostility.

      “Don’t think that you can bully me into being afraid of you, because I will never—”

      Her words ended in a gasp as Xerxes seized her in his arms. Lowering his mouth to hers, he brutally kissed her.

      Chapter Five

      HIS lips were hard and hot against hers, overwhelming Rose’s senses in a ruthless assault.

      She stiffened, pressing her hands instinctively against his chest. He leaned her back, deepening the kiss, forcibly pressing her lips apart. As he plundered her mouth with his tongue, she felt a shock of sudden pleasure so sharp and raw that she gasped. As his lips moved against hers, forcing her to respond, she was swept beneath the waves of sensation. He held her tightly and she felt the world swirl and twist around them, lost in a spinning current of desire she’d never experienced before.

      She tasted the sweetness of his breath, the taste of Scotch on his tongue. She felt the roughness of his jaw against her skin, the heat of him against her body.

      Overpowered by her captor’s strength and the intensity of his commanding embrace, she surrendered. She’d never been kissed before, truly kissed, and her brain shut off abruptly. She was briefly lost in the stroking touch of his fingers against her bare back, in the feeling of his muscular thighs straining against hers. He held her in his strong arms, keeping her from falling to the floor.

      Without her mind’s permission, her lips moved against his. She had no idea what she was doing, but pleasure such as she’d never felt before ripped through her body with sweet agony, making her tremble and shake. She reached her arms around his neck, as if to pull him closer, as if she knew that he and only he could provide the air she needed to breathe…

      Then she realized what she was doing. With a choked gasp, she ripped herself away from him. Staring up at him in horror, she sucked in her breath.

      Drawing back her hand, she slapped his face.

      Xerxes stared at her with surprise, his hand on his reddening cheek.

      “How dare you kiss me!” she shouted, her hand still throbbing with pain from the strength of her blow. “I am a married woman!”

      His lips twisted lazily as he suddenly relaxed. “You are not,” he said calmly, lifting a dark eyebrow. “And I weary of this discussion. But I’m finished. The kiss was merely to obtain the answer to a question.”

      Which made no sense at all! “What question?”

      He shrugged. “You did not know Växborg was married, or you would have tried to seduce me, to win me to your side. Which, with that clumsy kiss, you assuredly did not.”

      Clumsy? Her cheeks became red as she sucked in her breath. She was clumsy?

      It had been her first kiss. As a teenager, she’d been determined to wait for her idealistic vision of love’s first kiss; later, in her twenties, she’d felt too awkward to force it. A twenty-nine-year-old virgin was bad enough, but a woman that age who’d never even been kissed?

      She had absolutely no intention of explaining that to Xerxes Novros, however, leaving herself open to his mockery!

      “I see now that you’re not guilty of any crime,” he said carelessly, “except being gullible and naive.”

      Gullible and naive. Rose stared at him. Well, maybe she was. Her lips still felt bruised where he’d kissed her. What was wrong with her? How could she have kissed him back, even for an instant? How could she have let her body utterly overrule her brain—and her heart?

      “Don’t touch me again.”

      “I won’t.”

      Swallowing, she looked away. The electricity that had coursed through her body when he’d kissed her had been nothing like she’d ever felt before. She’d certainly never felt that way with Lars, not even when she’d allowed him to give her a single brief peck as the minister pronounced them man and wife!

      She hated her captor, but not half so much as she hated herself at that moment.

      “I mean it. If you try to kiss me again,” she said in a low voice, “I will kill you.”

      “You are threatening me?” He sounded amused.

      “Yes,” she snapped. It was no doubt stupid to threaten to kill a ruthless millionaire while trapped on his jet, but she was so angry and humiliated—and so overwhelmed still by the force of his kiss, the kiss he’d called clumsy—that she was beyond good sense.

      His lips twisted into an amused half smile as he considered her. “All right.”

      “All…all right?”

      “I won’t kiss you again.”

      She frowned, wondering if it was a trick. “You won’t?”

      “I give you my word,” he said carelessly. “I won’t kiss you again. Not unless you beg me.”

      “Perfect,”

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