At No Man's Command. Melanie Milburne
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worked as a lounge singer.
‘No one must know I’m here,’ she said. ‘Do you understand? No one.’
James turned from neatly arranging the sleeves of his coat to face her. She was still looking at him with hatred but something else moved in her gaze, a flicker of uncertainty, or was it fear? She quickly disguised it, however. She jutted her chin and flattened those delectably full lips. Her mouth had always fascinated him. Ripe and soft and full, a mouth built for sin and sex and seduction. There was nothing innocent about her mouth or her body. She was a five-foot-eight knockout package of sinuous catlike curves that could wrap around a man until he was strangled by his need of her.
And she knew it.
James moved past her to stride to the warmth of the sitting room. Thinking about that mouth was a bad move. He could practically feel those plump lips clasped around him, drawing on him until he went weak at the knees. He suppressed a shudder of traitorous desire. He would not think about that mouth. He would not think about that body. He would not think of the lust that burned inside him.
‘No one will find you here because you’re not staying.’
She followed him into the sitting room, her bare feet padding over the Persian carpet like the paws of a light-footed lioness. ‘You can’t throw me out. This is your mother’s house, not yours.’ She stood with her arms folded across her chest, looking exactly like she had a decade ago, all pouty, sulky teenager even though she was now twenty-five years old.
He let his gaze run over her in a leisurely sweep as if inspecting a cheap and tawdry item he had no intention of buying. ‘Pack your bags and get out.’
She slitted her eyes like a wildcat staring down a wolf. ‘I’m not leaving.’
James felt his blood skip and then roar through his veins. It thickened in his groin, reigniting the embers of a fire that had never quite been extinguished. He hated himself for it. He saw it as a weakness. It reduced him to the baseness of a wild animal with no other instinct than to mate with whatever willing female was available.
He wasn’t cut from the same low-quality cloth as his father. He could control his impulses. Aiesha had tried her seduction routine on him ten years ago but he hadn’t taken the bait.
And he wasn’t going to take it now.
‘I’m expecting a guest,’ he said.
‘Who?’
‘The woman I intend to marry is joining me at the weekend. You’ll be decidedly de trop.’
She laughed out loud, even going so far as to bend over double to hold her sides as if he’d told her the most humorous of jokes. ‘You mean to say you’ve actually asked that stuck-up frozen-faced heiress who doesn’t do anything but spend Daddy’s money on the High Street to marry you?’
James ground his teeth so hard he thought he’d have to take his meals through a straw for the rest of his life. ‘Phoebe’s the patron of several well-known charities.’
Aiesha was still giggling like a naughty schoolgirl. It made the base of his spine tighten like a bowstring. How like her to mock the most important decision of his life. He had chosen his future bride after lengthy consideration. Phoebe Trentonfield had her own money, which meant he could rule out the gold-digging factor. It had plagued him for most of his adult life, trying to find a partner who wanted him for himself instead of his money. It was the first box he wanted ticked. He was thirty-three years old. He wanted to settle down. He wanted to build a stable home life—like the one he’d thought he had until his father’s affairs had come to light. He wanted his mother to enjoy the experience of having grandchildren. He wanted someone who was content to be a traditional wife so he could rebuild the Challender empire his father had so recklessly frittered away. He wanted stability and predictability instead of scandal and chaos. His father was the impulsive one. Not him. He knew what he wanted and was determined and disciplined enough to get it and keep it.
Aiesha gave him a goading look. ‘What’s she going to say when she finds out you’re here with me?’
His molars went down another couple of millimetres. ‘She’s not going to find out because you’re leaving first thing in the morning.’
She hitched one of her hips in a model-like pose, a teasing smile still lurking around the corners of her mouth. ‘So you’re not going to be a big old meanie and throw me out in the snow on my toosh tonight, then?’
He wanted to bury her in the snow, at least ten feet deep so he wouldn’t be tempted to touch her. And the less he thought about her curvy little toosh the better. How was he going to get her out of here? He could hardly send her packing at this time of night, with the roads so slippery and treacherous. He had only just made it through from the main road himself. The nearest village had a bed and breakfast but it was currently closed for the winter. The closest hotel was a half hour drive away...an hour in these conditions. ‘Does your car have snow chains?’ he asked.
‘I didn’t bring a car. Your mother picked me up from the airport in Edinburgh.’
What was his mother thinking? This was getting crazier by the minute. He hadn’t known his mother had been in contact with Aiesha over the years. What was she thinking bringing the daughter of the devil back into her life?
Was this a set-up? A practical joke?
Surely not... How on earth could it be? His mother had insisted he not worry about the dog. Surely she knew how dangerous it would be to put Aiesha in the same house as him. She was a ticking time bomb. She courted trouble. She craved attention from anyone wearing trousers, making it her mission to get them out of them as fast as she could. She was ruthless and shameless and as sexy as a pin-up girl. Damn it. ‘Right, well, I’ll drive you back to the airport first thing in the morning,’ he said. ‘Your little stint as dog-and house-sitter is over.’
She sashayed over to him, deliberately trailing one of her fingertips along one of the whitened tendons on the back of one of his clenched fists. ‘Loosen up, James. You’re as wound up as a tight spring. If you need an outlet for all that pressure—’ she batted her impossibly long eyelashes at him ‘—just call me, OK?’
James forced himself to endure the electric shock of her touch without flinching. He forced himself not to look at her mouth, where the tip of her pink tongue had left a moistly glistening trail. He forced himself not to slam her against the nearest wall and slake the fireball of his lust by plunging into her hot, wet warmth and doing what he’d always wanted to do to her. Every cell in his body was vibrating with need, and what sickened him the most was she damn well knew it. ‘Get the freaking hell out of my sight.’
Her eyes glinted with devilment. ‘I love it when a man talks dirty to me.’ She gave an exaggerated little shiver that made her braless breasts jiggle beneath her sweater. ‘It makes me come in a flash.’
James curled his fingers so tightly into his palms he felt every one of their joints protest. ‘Be ready at seven. Understood?’
She gave him another sultry little smile that sent another scorching flare to his groin. ‘You can’t get rid of me that easily. Didn’t you hear the weather report for tonight?’
A fist of panic clutched at his insides. He’d heard it in the car half an hour ago but back then he’d welcomed the thought of a blizzard snowing him in for a few days so he could put the final touches to the drawings on the Sherwood project before Phoebe joined him at the weekend.
He glared at Aiesha with such intense loathing he could feel it burning through his eyeballs like hot pokers. ‘You planned this, didn’t you?’
She tossed the length of her glossy chestnut hair back over one of her shoulders as she laughed that spine-fizzing laugh again. ‘You think I’ve got that much power that I can manipulate the weather to suit me? You flatter me, James.’
He sucked in a breath as she moved to the stairs with her swinging hip gait. Carnal lust roared in his body but he wasn’t going to let her win this. They could be snowed