LITMIR.BIZ

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with him instead—and when he insists on something, you damn well do it.

      I swear it was a genuine mistake, forgetting to lock that door—but I can’t say I was sorry that I had right at that moment.

      The expression in the stranger’s piercing pewter-grey eyes when they locked with mine was mesmerising, making my breath stutter in my throat and my heart-rate soar, flooding my body with dopamine as I gazed back at him.

      He just stood there, with his firm lips slightly parted and his striking eyes narrowed and looked at me. Really looked at me. Like there was nothing else on earth but me, naked in that bath.

      Spurred on by the captivation I saw in his face, I began to move my stilled fingers again, bathing in his intense, penetrating gaze, feeling the heat of his wanton attention right down to my bones.

      Over the gentle splash of the water I could hear his breath as it scythed in and out of his throat, and through the haze of my need to finish what I’d started I saw his shoulders tense and his hands bunch rigidly at his sides, as if he was fighting to keep them there—to stop himself from reaching down into the water and touching me.

      That thought took me right to the edge, and as I began to hit my peak, greedy, unconcealed desire flashed across his face, tipping me over. I came in intense waves, a loud groan of pleasure rasping through my throat as my release rushed to my head, blurring my vision.

      My noisy declaration of pleasure seemed to shock him out of his shameless voyeurism, and as my world came back to rights I saw him take a step backwards, his brow furrowed into a deep frown, blinking as if he’d just come to his senses.

      As I caught my breath and fought past the lingering waves of ecstasy that gripped me all I could do was laugh.

      It was a pretty ridiculous situation after all.

      ‘Nice to meet you. Thanks for the visual stimulation,’ I managed to say through my giggles.

      But instead of finding the humour of the situation too, he gave me a cool stare that made the laugher die in my throat, then turned on his heel and strode quickly out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

      Shrugging off my discomfort, I smiled to myself, replaying the expression in his eyes right before I’d climaxed. He’d wanted to see me come. He hadn’t been able to look away—even though he was clearly frustrated with himself for not doing so now.

      The pleasure for me hadn’t been about the illicit thrill of him catching me masturbating, though, it was the knowledge that he could have turned and walked away immediately but he hadn’t. He’d stood there and watched—as if he hadn’t been able to help himself.

      I loved the thought of that—of having that kind of power over him. This handsome, beguiling stranger.

      I wondered who he was and what he was doing here in my father’s house at six o’clock in the evening. My father never came home before seven, and most nights it was more like nine o’clock before he made an appearance. This guy had to be someone special for my father to come back early and meet him here in his home.

      Getting out of the bath, I dried my still tingling skin with one of the soft fluffy towels the housekeeper provides in abundance and went back to my room to get dressed, half hoping to bump into the mysterious dark-eyed visitor on the way.

      But it was not to be. The sound of muffled voices floated up from downstairs—two men, I thought, and almost certainly one of them was my father, judging by the deep timbre of his voice—so it seemed likely that my mystery man had returned to whatever kind of meeting they were having down there.

      I dressed quickly, pulling on a vest top and my oldest, most comfortable jeans, and made my way downstairs.

      ‘Maya—come in here, please,’ my father barked as I tiptoed past the sitting room door in an attempt to make it to the kitchen undetected and knock back a large glass of wine before suppertime.

      While I was staying here he insisted I join him to eat, and I definitely needed to be tipsy before facing him over a meal, when it would be just the two of us avoiding each other’s eyes in silence.

      Reluctantly, I turned back and approached the sitting room doorway, wondering what the hell I was about to walk into. My father rarely introduced me to his associates. It was always my older sister, April, the golden child of the family, whom he touted in front of them. I was merely the shady black sheep against her pristine white pedigree.

      Had the guy told my father what had just happened upstairs?

      Surely not.

      He’d come out of it looking just as bad as me, if not worse, and my father was not a man to mess with in regards to his family. I’d heard of him destroying men—in a business sense, that is—for far less than walking in on one of his daughters in the bath.

      I sauntered into the room with my head held high, determined not to be cowed by either of the intense, powerfully present men, and gave my father the kind of subservient smile that clearly made him suspicious, if his return scowl was anything to go by.

      ‘This is Benedict Chivers. He’s agreed to let you work for him at his company, Ergo-i Software, for the next few weeks while I’m away in New York.’

      He gestured towards the man who had been watching me make myself come not ten minutes ago, who was now standing ramrod-straight in my father’s sitting room, with a large glass of ten-year-old Scotch clutched in his large hand.

      It struck me with force once again what an attractive man he was, with a square-jawed, dark-eyed handsomeness that was impossible to tear my gaze away from.

      There was no grey in his thick jet-black hair, which he wore swept away from his angular, high-cheekboned face, so I guessed he was pretty young to be company director. I put him in his early thirties. He was big too. The guy must have been at least six foot four, and with a broad-shouldered, long limbed body that made me want to climb up it and rub myself against him, just to experience his visceral power up close and personal.

      ‘You’ll be there to help out with whatever he needs,’ my father continued, clearly oblivious of what had gone on right under his nose upstairs—thank God. It would be such a shame to ruin the sexily enigmatic Mr Chivers at this point.

      ‘Taking notes, organising his schedule—that sort of thing—while his executive assistant is recovering from an operation. He’ll have other PAs looking after him too, so they’ll be able to help you if you have any questions.’

      I turned back from staring intently at Benedict Chivers—who, I was irked to note, was looking back at me as if he’d never laid eyes on me before in his life—and offered my father a demure smile.

      ‘It’ll be good for you to see how another company runs its day-to-day business,’ he said, ignoring what must have seemed like abnormally respectable behaviour coming from me. ‘Especially if you really are determined to establish your own enterprise.’

      He said ‘enterprise’ as if I was planning on setting up a seedy brothel or a gun-running cartel.

      Irritation clawed up my spine.

      In actual fact, my plan is to grow a custom-made jewellery business—an idea I’ve toyed with for ages. I’ll be the first to admit I’ve not exactly been focussed before this point in my life, and have perhaps spent a bit too much time partying, but I had an epiphany after my twenty-third birthday, when I realised my friends were all moving on with their lives and I wasn’t, and I’ve worked hard to refocus my goals since then.

      Trouble is, a start-up jewellery business is going to need a hell of a lot of capital to get it off the ground and a lot of commercial savvy to run it profitably—the latter of which I’ve been working on, with the help of a night school class for the past year. My tutor thinks I’ll do well, but I know my business skills are still somewhat lacking.

      My father has finally agreed to give me control of my trust fund if I can prove I can be business-minded, so I can invest that money in getting my venture off the

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