Was she? There wasn’t a word invented for what she was right now. All she could do was nod. Stupidly.

He put his hands on her thighs and lifted her up towards him so that his erection was nudging the slick folds of her body.

But then he stopped and looked at her. ‘You’re not...innocent?’

Erin shook her head quickly, a little mortified by how desperate she was to feel him inside her. Her voice was rough, breathy. ‘No...but it’s been a while.’

‘We’ll take it slow.’

Erin silently begged for mercy, because she knew this was going to be—Ohhhh!He thrust into her in one fluid, cataclysmic movement, watching her reaction. Her back arched. He was so big... She felt stretched, just on the border of being uncomfortable, but then he went deeper and she let out a shaky breath.

She’d never felt so...full.

Ajax adjusted his body so that he was almost completely over her. He slowly withdrew and she could feel her muscles massaging his length. His jaw was gritted. Sweat sheened his brow. Erin’s own skin was slick with perspiration.

He moved back in again, and she gasped at the sensation as little flutters of pleasure emanated from the centre of her body. He moved rhythmically, in and out, and her tension wound higher with each move of his body.

Desperation pooled low inside her... An urgency. A need formore.She wasn’t even aware she’d spoken out loud until Ajax was moving faster, going deeper.

Harder.

Had she said that? But soon he was moving with more force and her head tipped back. There was a force building inside her and she wanted to plead or beg, but she couldn’t articulate what she needed.

Ajax threaded his fingers through hers and held her hands above her head. She felt like growling at him. She bit his shoulder. She heard a low huff of a chuckle.

I made him laugh.

But before that could register, he was releasing her hand and cupping her breast, feeding it to his mouth, teeth nipping at her sensitised flesh. Suddenly everything went very still—and then she was falling, tripping, end over end, down into a whirlpool of pleasure so intense that this time she couldn’t stop herself from crying out.

She was only barely aware of Ajax’s guttural shout as he followed her, his big, powerful body slumping over hers. She put her arms around him without even realising what she was doing.

A month later

Ajax stood at the window. Fully dressed. As if his clothes were some kind of armour.

Against what?asked a snide voice.

Against the naked woman behind him on the bed.

She was still asleep. He could see her reflection in the window. The pale skin, the graceful curves. The soft swells of breasts and buttocks and the flare of hips.

The long red-gold hair spread over the pillow. The same hair that trailed across his chest and down as she explored his body with her mouth, before wrapping a hand around him and—

Skata!Enough.

She was just a woman. Like any other.

So why had he vowed not to touch her again after that first night?

Because he’d known, even then, that what they’d shared had been...unprecedented, and that it should not be indulged again because he was not looking for encounters that went beyond being casual.

He’d woken the following morning—late. Unheard of for Ajax, who hadn’t slept past dawn for years. He’d felt hungover. As if he’d been drinking. But it hadn’t been a hangover from drink—again, not usual for him. It had been a sex hangover.

He’d had his share of sexual experiences—he wasn’t a monk—but he’d never had sex like that. He’d had to have her. It had been building for weeks. She’d been distracting him from work. Unheard of.

In the aftermath of that night he’d put their chemistry down to the intense circumstances leading up to the negotiations that had finally put him in full control of Nikolau Industries.

Ajax and his legal team had been all but sequestered for weeks, in order to prevent any leaks. So it was no wonder he’d started to notice Erin Murphy, the newest member of his legal team. Who, he’d been assured upon her appointment, was brilliant.