Dominic had taken off Sophie’s shoes. Sitting on the bed, with its rich claret-coloured satin counterpane, her hands intertwined in her lap, it was hard for her to stop trembling like a shivering kitten that had been left out in the rain as he knelt before her. She wanted him to kiss her. Wanted it so badly that her very bones ached with longing. Instead, she watched entranced as he divested himself of his jacket and tie, opened some buttons on his shirt and—with his gaze fixed firmly on hers—slid his palms up the outside of her stockinged thighs.

      The blue silk of her dress rippled like a gentle flowing stream as he edged it further and further up her legs. She was wearing a cream-coloured suspender belt with little embossed daisies on it to hold up her matching cream hosiery, and Sophie wondered what Dominic would think of her undoubtedly sexy underwear? Would he imagine she’d worn it just in case she got lucky? Because this was so far from the truth, and she was unable to keep her pained thoughts to herself, she inadvertently released a groan. Dominic smiled at her with a slow, engagingly sexy smile of acknowledgement, and a spark of molten heat burned back at her from his darkened green eyes as he flipped open the fastenings that held her stockings up and slowly…very slowly…peeled them down her bare legs.

      Excitement and all-consuming need thrummed commandingly through Dominic’s blood. Seducing a beautiful woman was one of life’s most exquisite pleasures, after all, and he knew the seductive arts as well as he knew how to make a million dollars without exerting himself. The skill had become innate. Knowing how to take things slowly—how to drive a woman’s passion to such a crescendo that she would beg him to take her, to ease her agony—he was perfectly acquainted with bestowing sensual delectation.

      But, right now Dominic was the one who was in desperate need of this woman’s touch. He needed it—no, craved it, as if he would lose his mind if he didn’t have it soon. With her eyes blinking back at him like a startled owl’s, Dominic registered her tension—her excitement and, linking his fingers expertly around the sides of the scant silk panties she was wearing, he gave them a gentle tug downwards. Quickly removing them, he settled his body nearer hers on the bed, whilst still kneeling on the carpet, and this time slid his palms up the insides of her trembling legs.

      Hearing her deeply in-drawn breath, Dominic caressed the fine dark curls at her apex, then worked his fingers inside her. At the sensation of hot moist heat, that drenched him, he could not prevent his own gasp of violent pleasure.

      Oh, God, yes! More please more! Don’t stop. Sophie’s thoughts were desperate and wild as Dominic worked his magic, making her climax almost before she even knew that was her destination. Feeling heat saturate her, and her aroused nipples rub acutely sensitively against the flimsy material of her bra inside her dress, she expelled her breath in soft urgent gasps of deliciously lustful pleasure. Tipping back her head, she shut her eyes in ecstasy as erotic waves rippled powerfully through her, one after the other.

      She’d never known release like it. Such mind-spinning pleasure had only been pure fantasy for Sophie up until now.

      Opening her eyes again, she saw that Dominic had discarded his shirt and was doing the same to his trousers. Her gaze devoured him greedily. His body was amazing. Broad, beautifully muscled shoulders and chest, an iron-hard stomach tapering down to lean, tight hips, a sprinkling of fine blond hairs disappearing tantalisingly down into his black silk boxers. Sophie inadvertently dampened her lips with her tongue.

      Dominic honed in on the unknowingly erotic gesture with such a possessive, hungry glance that she almost climaxed again, right there and then. Then, rising over her on the bed, he tipped up her chin and brought his lips down hard and hot upon hers. His tongue was a seductive instrument of velvet torture as he played with and teased Sophie’s mouth, nipping and stroking her tender flesh with ruthless prowess.

      His expertise took kissing to a whole new dimension. The taste of him was the most destroyingly addictive nectar her lips had ever experienced, and she wasn’t ashamed to silently admit she wanted more. Reaching for the hem of her silk dress, he lifted it over Sophie’s head in one quick, fluid movement, then undid her lacy cream bra in the same expert fashion.

      ‘You are perfect,’ he breathed in wonder, as his hand cupped the soft swell of one full pink-tipped breast and then the other.

      ‘Not as perfect as you,’ Sophie couldn’t help replying, putting her hand out to touch his bare, flat stomach. Her fingers touched velvet steel, and she sucked in a deep breath in purely sensual satisfaction.

      ‘Yes,’ Dominic agreed, his voice a silken rasp, ‘touch me, Sophie. I want you to touch me.’

      His command opened the floodgates of need inside her. Greedily she slid her hand down, past his perfect navel, past the springy clutch of fine blond hairs, and grasped his hard, hot erection. He felt like satin. As her fingers curled around him Dominic groaned, then bent his head and kissed Sophie again, drinking from her moist, plundered lips with increasing urgency and ardour. She offered no protest when he guided her firmly down onto the bed and positioned his strong, muscular thighs either side of her.

      Just before she lost the power to think of anything else but the intense gratification to come, Sophie knew she ought to tell Dominic that she was on the Pill. She took it more to help regulate her periods than for more obvious reasons, but even as she opened her mouth to speak she saw him reach into the trousers he had discarded and withdraw a small blue packet.

      As he slipped off his boxers and sheathed himself in the protection she saw for herself how generously endowed he was, and her mouth went dry as chalk. She forgot the fact that they were supposed to be enemies, that they didn’t have a single thing in common between them except this: this wild, inexplicable sexual attraction that had flared up between them hotly and unexpectedly and compelled them to go to bed together. And when Dominic brought his mouth down upon her breasts, attending to each one in turn with hot, demanding caresses, urging her towards the most intense delectation she had ever known, Sophie decided not to fight her conscience at all, but simply just to enjoy the experience instead.

      Didn’t her friends do that all the time? Not the ones who were looking for Mr Right, but the others, who believed it was a woman’s right to take sexual pleasure wherever she could find it and suffer no guilt.

      ‘Are you ready for me, Sophie?’ Dominic whispered against her ear, as he slid his hard, fit body along hers. ‘Are you going to let