A Not-So-Innocent Seduction

by Janice Maynard

  Any moment now, Liam would reappear, so she had to decide her course. Gazing at her reflection in the large ornate mirror that hung over the sofa in the outer salon, she began to take off her clothes.

  * * *

  Liam remained beneath the icy cold spray for longer than necessary, trying to tame the raging beast of lust and desire that made him tremble. He wanted Zoe so badly, he feared overwhelming her.

  Taking his sex in his hands, he thought about relieving some of his agitation in the shower. His erection was full and heavy, the skin taut and sensitive. But when he moved his fingers restlessly up the shaft, he realized that he wanted Zoe’s hands on his body more than he wanted momentary release.

  Shivering beneath the frigid water, he soaped himself and washed his hair. By rights, this punishment should have helped. But when he got out and dried off, his need was not diminished in any way.

  The hotel had provided plush robes in male and female sizes. He put on the larger of the two and scraped his hands through his hair. Planning to dress quickly and meet Zoe back out in the salon, he opened the bathroom door and padded barefoot into the bedroom.

  Stopping dead in his tracks, he felt his mouth go dry and his throat tighten. “Zoe,” he said hoarsely.

  “I was hoping for more of a reaction than that,” she said, her smile cheeky. But in her eyes he saw the same vulnerability that had attracted him in the beginning and made him want to protect her at all costs.

  Her pose was designed to seduce. Propped up in a nest of pillows against the headboard, her naked beauty caught him off guard. He rested one hand against the armoire, more for support than anything else. Her bare breasts were as perfect as any classical statue, but warm and pink, the visage mouth-watering.

  Leaving his robe on for the moment was a tactical choice. He moved toward the bed, wondering if he could keep her here for a week, a month, forever. “I thought you wanted dinner,” he said, realizing as he uttered the words that they were ridiculous and unnecessary. Zoe had made her wishes more than clear.

  She patted the mattress beside her. “All I want is you, Liam Kavanagh. Come woo me with that famous Irish charm.”

  “I’m feeling more like a Viking marauder.” The flat statement was entirely true. And should have warned her that she was in danger. But his reference to their fantasy play the first time they made love made her laugh softly.

  “Then perhaps you should tie me up. So I don’t try to murder you with a poison dagger.” She held out her hand, and he saw for the first time that she had a couple of ties, obviously filched from his suitcase. They were silk. Ridiculously expensive.

  “Why didn’t I think of that?” The words came out hoarse and ragged. Breathing was difficult. Resting one knee on the bed, he took the ties and examined his options. The headboard was solid, but each corner was adorned with an ornamental spindle. If the mattress had been a king, this little game wouldn’t have worked.

  Their suite, however, was decorated in antiques, and the ornate bed was a queen. Which meant that if he spread Zoe’s arms wide, he could restrain her easily enough.

  Fastening the strips of cloth around her wrists and securing them to the wooden anchors gave him an entirely Neanderthal rush of exhilaration. She looked up at him the entire time, her sky-blue irises almost obscured by the dilation of her dark pupils. The only sign that she might be at all alarmed was the way her small white teeth worried her lower lip.

  Sitting back on his haunches when the deed was done, he stared at her. It was like giving a starving man access to a smorgasbord. He didn’t know where to start first.

  Zoe was silent, her chest rising and falling rapidly. “Are you cold?” she asked politely.

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Not even a little.” In fact, he felt like he was burning up from the inside out.

  “Then why don’t you ditch that robe?”

  Without leaving the bed, he shrugged out of the heavy terry garment and tossed it aside. Zoe’s eyes widened a fraction more as her gaze landed on his erection. It grew beneath her appreciative regard. Her legs moved restlessly against the soft sheets.

  The air was redolent with the scent of desire and the fragrance of lilacs in the arrangement of fresh flowers tucked in a crystal vase across the room. Nature’s perfume would mark his sensory memory forever.

  He was not sure how long he hovered on the edge of reason. The room was silent but for the tick of a mantel clock. Outside, traffic rushed madly, but the cacophony of blaring horns and squealing brakes was muted and distant, barely impinging on his consciousness.

  He ran a hand down her hip to her thigh to her ankle. “Are you comfortable?” he asked, not quite able to make the full leap to realistic barbarian.

  “Does it matter?”

  The taunt snapped what little control he had left. “I suppose not.” Sliding down in the bed, he positioned his body between her legs and maneuvered until he could taste her intimately. With the first pass of his tongue, she cried out.

  He stopped and lifted his head. “Perhaps I should have gagged you,” he said, injecting silky menace into the words.

  Her whole body quivered. “No. Please. I’ll be quiet.”

  The begging added a nice touch. Without responding, he returned to his enjoyable task, trying to make her lose her senses. Her sex was moist and swollen, clear evidence of her arousal. The taste went to his head like strong liquor. When he bit gently at the one spot that begged for his attention, Zoe’s back arched as she groaned and thrust helplessly against his mouth while he coaxed the last ounce of response from her quivering body.

  In the aftermath, he rested his head on her hot, damp thigh, listening to the beat of his own heart. The frantic thuds raged like the waterfalls that crashed down the mountains as the snow melted. No longer able to defer his own need for release, he moved away only a moment to don a condom. Then he came down on top of her, supporting most of his weight on his elbows. Her body was a welcoming foil to his.

  They were nose to nose. So close he could see the blond tips of her darker eyelashes.

  Zoe moistened her lips with her tongue. “If you need a reference next time you go out marauding, I’ll be happy to testify on your behalf.” Her words were husky and low.

  He pressed his mouth to hers softly. Tenderness mingled with impatient arousal, tempering his urgency. “I may retire,” he said. “I’ve heard the life span of a Viking is pretty short and I don’t want to miss a minute of this.” Raining butterfly kisses across her nose, her cheeks, her forehead, he tried to convey what he couldn’t put into words.

  But soon, the feel of her soft belly pressing against his erection derailed his efforts to be gentle. With one hand, he opened her passage and pressed inward.

  Zoe gasped.

  Everything about the first time they made love faded away, and he moved in her as if this was brand-new. An unminted experience. A story waiting to be told. The pleasure was intense, each moment layering upon the next with hushed anticipation.

  The muscles in Zoe’s arms quivered visibly as she pulled at her restraints. The evidence of her wild impatience shored up his desire to make the intimacy last. “I can do anything I want to you,” he said, pausing to wet one pert nipple with a swirl of his tongue. “You’re completely helpless. Totally at my mercy. Every inch of you belongs to me.”

  “Barbarian,” she hissed. But it was a weak protest at best. The rosy tint to her cheeks told him she was enjoying the pretense.

  “All men are barbarians beneath the skin,” he said. You can dress us up and tame us like lap dogs, but at the first opportunity, we’ll grab for what we want.” He withdrew almost completely and slid back in to torment them both. “And I want you.” The squeeze of her inner passage around his rigid flesh was intense. He wanted to come more than he wanted his next breath, but he couldn’t bear to end it. Not yet.

  “Untie me,” she pleaded. “I want to touch you.”

  “You should have thought of that when you devised this little game.”
Leaning to one side, he ran one of his hands from her shoulder up her arm to her wrist. Twining her fingers with his, he thrust lazily. “I’ll make you come again,” he promised.

  Her eyelids fluttered shut on a sigh. “I can’t.” The pout of her lips was petulant.

  “Why not?” If the involuntary clasp of her body on his was any indication, she was well on her way.

  “I won’t let myself receive pleasure from a barbarian.”

  He chuckled, returning to his earlier position and picking up the pace. “Wanna bet?”

  Humor fled in the face of dark, urgent hunger. His control snapped, and he slammed into her repeatedly. Heat rose in his belly, spread to his loins and sent flash fire to his sex. Dimly he realized that Zoe’s inner muscles gripped him tightly as she climaxed, but he was lost in a physical bliss so pure it seemed impossible.

  When he finally regained his senses, remorse swamped him. Her arms must be aching like hell. “I need to untie you,” he muttered, his words slurred with exhaustion. He felt boneless, as if she had sapped every bit of stamina he possessed.

  When he thought he could stand, he rose to his feet and disposed of the condom. As he came back to deal with his prisoner, he saw that his neckwear had been rendered unusable for anything other than erotic fun and games.

  Because of the way Zoe had writhed and struggled, the knots were tight. He picked at them impatiently, already wanting her again.

  She pursed her lips, a frown marking a tiny crease between her brows. “Shouldn’t you have a knife to cut me free?”

  “I’m pretty sure TSA wouldn’t have approved that in my carry-on. Be still, will you? I’m never going to get these loose at this rate.”

  Zoe stared at him wide-eyed. “Are you in a hurry?”

  Her innocence was not convincing. “Yes, damn it. I’d advise not testing my patience.”

  “Duly noted.” The snappy response was designed to irritate him. And it worked.

  When he finally got the first knot undone and unwrapped the tie from Zoe’s arm, he was chagrined to see the deep red marks on her wrist. Were barbarians capable of feeling remorse? Probably not.

  He smoothed his thumb over the damage. “Is it sore?” Even knowing he had given her two satisfying orgasms, the visible result of their love play distressed him.

  Twisting her wrist to get the blood flowing, Zoe curled a hand behind his neck and pulled him down for a kiss. He went willingly, ignoring the fact that he still had one knot to go.

  “It’s fine,” she said. “I’m fine.” At that very moment, her stomach rumbled loudly.

  Obviously, he needed to feed his captive. There were rules about that kind of thing. Liam reluctantly released her and struggled with her other hand, this one taking him even longer. “If we do this again,” he grumbled, “we’re going to use professional equipment.”

  Zoe raised an eyebrow. “Someone makes professional barbarian equipment?”

  “I haven’t actually seen such a thing, but I’m betting that on the internet you can find just about anything.”

  At last, he freed her. Zoe crossed her arms across her chest. As if he hadn’t seen everything there was to see already. For a split second he debated initiating an immediate round three. But then he thought better of it. If they were going to keep this up all night, they needed calories.

  He climbed out of bed despite the fact that every instinct told him to stay. “I’ll leave the bathroom to you for now. Do you trust me to order dinner for us?”

  She nodded, now with the sheet pulled all the way to her shoulders. “I’ll eat pretty much anything except for lima beans and tofu. But make sure there’s lots of whatever you order. And chocolate. And wine.”

  Bending to pick up the robe he had tossed on the floor, he shrugged into it, belting the waist. “Anything else?”

  “Some strawberries wouldn’t hurt. And maybe some whipped cream. You never know when that might come in handy.”

  He stared at her. “Are we talking about dinner or sex?”

  “Dinner first. Then more sex. But we might save the fruit for later.”

  Hands on his hips, he regarded her, shaking his head. “I don’t know where I ever got the idea you were a sweet, innocent woman. But I like the way you think. How do you feel about bananas?”

  “I put a condom on one once in health class.”

  “Was it good for you?”

  She burst out laughing. “I don’t know where I ever got the idea you were a serious-minded stuffed shirt.”

  “Turns out, we were both wrong.”

  Although they weren’t touching, he experienced the oddest feeling of connection. For this one moment, they were in perfect accord. His ancestors would have called it fate. Or a gift from the fairies. Liam preferred to think of it as destiny. Fate was a whimsical, occasionally coldhearted bitch. But a man could control his own destiny.

  “There’s a robe for you in the bathroom,” he said. “But don’t get too attached to it. My plans for later include you being naked.”

  Sixteen

  Zoe freshened up and donned the soft, comfy robe, flipping her hair over the collar. One look in the mirror told her she looked exactly like what she was...a woman who had spent several hours in bed with her lover.

  She was sore in more places than her wrists, but it was a good kind of sore...the sort of feeling that curved her mouth in a smug smile.

  After splashing her face with water and brushing her hair, she spritzed her wrists with perfume and used a bit of gloss on her puffy lips. Now, her reflection was more like the usual Zoe.

  When she entered the living room area of their suite, Liam was clearing a spot by the window for their meal. He looked over his shoulder as she entered. “Should be here soon.”

  She perched on the arm of the sofa, enjoying the view. Liam in that robe was only slightly less yummy than naked Liam. But before she could go too far with that particular fantasy, a knock sounded at the door.

  The young man who rolled a serving cart into their room and uncovered the dishes never batted an eye at their dishabille. Presumably he was used to the eccentricities of hotel guests. But Zoe couldn’t help feeling a bit embarrassed. With the do-not-disturb sign on the door and the robes she and Liam were wearing, the guy had to know they’d been having sex.

  Even a more seasoned employee would have goggled at the tip Liam handed over. The kid’s effusive thanks were still bubbling when Liam eased him out the door and shut it behind him.

  “How much was that?” Zoe asked.

  Liam shrugged, his grin wide. “A couple hundred. I’m in a good mood. Come sit down before everything gets cold.”

  The meal was a hodgepodge of delights. Thinly shaved prime rib on homemade rolls, fresh asparagus and cinnamon apples were Zoe’s favorites. “You’ve been paying attention to what I order at the Silver Beeches,” she accused, suddenly realizing that such appealing choices couldn’t have been entirely random.

  Liam nodded, entirely unrepentant. “Of course. It’s my job to make you happy.”

  “I like the sound of that.”

  With tousled hair and the shadow of a late-day beard darkening his chin, Liam was the epitome of a lazy, satisfied predator. A lion maybe, relaxing in his domain before his next hunting mission. He ate with gusto, devouring twice as much as she did, and draining a bottle of wine with a little help from her.

  Over dessert, chocolate cake filled with dark-chocolate ganache, they chatted lazily of this and that. Silver Glen. Dylan’s bar. Politics. The books they had read and liked.

  When she was feeling completely mellow and utterly content with life, Liam dropped an unexpected bomb. “May I ask you a personal question?” he said.

  She stiffened automatically. Though she knew intellectually that he had no wish to harm her, her shields went up. “I suppose.”

  “You’re an only child...right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So when your father dies, his company will go to you and your mother...or only you
if she is gone.”

  “Yes. What’s your point?” She was not happy that he had decided to introduce this topic in the midst of their romantic idyll.

  Liam sipped his coffee, his eyes meeting hers over the rim of his cup. “Has it ever occurred to you that if you cooperate with him now, you might be able to shape the company and help steer it in the direction you want it to go?”

  A knot of hurt formed in her stomach. Clearly Liam hadn’t understood the full measure of her father’s ruthless determination. “I don’t want the company,” she said flatly. “And no. I have no wish to cooperate with him. I tried plenty of times when I was younger, believe me.”

  “I know it’s hard, but he’s your family, no matter how much you dislike his methods. Are you sure you want to permanently sever that tie?”

  Her fists were clenched in her lap where he couldn’t see. And though his perspective was understandable, she wished that just once in her life someone would take her side.

  “You don’t understand,” she said quietly. “You come from a family where support is freely given, where you all love each other despite your differences. My father is not like that. My mother and I are little more than chattels to him, incidental pawns in his game.”

  “That’s a pretty cynical view.”

  “And you’re being presumptuous. You know nothing at all about my life. So I’d appreciate it if you would resist the urge to pass judgment.”

  “For God’s sake, I’m not judging you.”

  “You are,” she cried passionately. “Your father was a disappointment to you, but instead of writing off the Kavanagh empire, you sacrificed your dreams on the altar of filial responsibility. That was your choice. But it’s not mine. I’ve seen the world and had some amazing experiences. I haven’t allowed my father to dictate who I am or what I make of my life. I’ve been free.”

  “You call roving from town to town, always looking over your shoulder being free?”

  * * *

  Zoe’s face went white, and Liam knew he had gone too far. Her family situation was not his business. He understood that. But she wore loneliness like a hair shirt, and it hurt him to see her that way. “I’m sorry,” he said.