Page 54 of Master of Fortune

“Let me repeat. Why are you in my cottage?”

“Want to tell me why you’re so pissed at me?”

She pulled the terrycloth wrap from her hair, threw it onto a nearby chair, and narrowed her gaze. “How many women are you fucking right now?”

“At this very moment, I’m not actively fucking anyone.”

She clenched her jaw. “How many women have you slept with since we started fucking?”

The vultures were already circling and getting in her ear, and she’d been in town less than a few hours.

“Does it matter, since this isn’t a real engagement?”

She stalked to me and shoved me back while trying to clutch her towel to her chest. “If you believe I’m letting you put your dick in me while you’re fucking other women, you’ve got another think coming.”

But before she could shove me again, I grabbed her, pinning her back to my front.

“Let’s get this straight.” I reached for the belt of a robe draped across the end of her bed. “My dick is going to make a permanent imprint in your cunt over the next year.”

“Keep dreaming, asshole.” She elbowed me in the stomach.

“I don’t need to dream. It’s a fact.”

Before she realized what I was about to do, I tugged her arms behind her back and wound the silk around her wrists, causing her towel to fall to the floor.

“What the hell.” She glared at me over her shoulder as she struggled against my hold. “I really hate you right now.”

Her breath grew shallow and her eyes dilated as I cupped her face and brought my mouth to hers. “I’m sure you’ll keep saying that for a long time to come.”

As mad as she was, I knew the flush of her skin wasn’t just from the blaze of anger.

She wanted to fuck.

I’d seen it the moment our eyes connected in the ballroom.

Hell, I’d seen it the first time I’d set eyes on her in Vegas three months ago.

The hunger, the arousal, the need. She was even more appealing now.

Wet hair tumbling all around her, naked, toned body warm from her shower, hands bound behind her back, and angry as a viper ready to make a meal of me.

All I wanted to do was bend her over her bed and take her until she submitted to every one of my demands.

A low whimper escaped her lips before she realized what she’d done and pulled back. “Simon, I swear to God, if you don’t untie me, I will kick your ass.”

“First of all”—I held her stare and challenged—“I’d like to see you try.”

She clenched her teeth, ready to retort, but I spoke again. “Second, you’re aroused by this, so don’t even think about pretending you’re not. I’ve fucked you enough to know you prefer the edge of pain over gentle any day. Actually, you want me to take it beyond the edge. Aren’t you the one who likes to scream, ‘bite me, choke me, just do something to make me come’?”

She swallowed but kept her lips pressed together.

The memories of her begging had my cock turning into a metal weight in my pants.

“And third, I’ll untie you once I make something very clear.”

I took her arms in one hand and gripped her hair with the other, tugging her head back. “You are mine to do with as I please. That’s the deal. For my silence on your club activities, I get to fuck you, whenever, wherever, however I want.”

“Like hell you do. Go ahead and try to prove I’m doing anything. As of now, Silent Night doesn’t exist.”