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His desire to claim, control, invade.
He’d managed the last, for he’d captivated her mind, but she could accept that.
Tennyson Rule Three: Accept your weaknesses and, if you can’t fix them, compensate for them.
Cleopatra had been no different. She always knew she walked the knife edge between holding the reins and being the spoils of war. Savannah surmised that the Egyptian monarch had kept to the upper side of the knife by being queen first and woman second. If she’d ever forgotten that, had let her woman’s desires completely take her over, her allure to a man of power like Marc Anthony and Caesar would have been fleeting, a piece of candy consumed and forgotten.
Savannah ignored the twist of pain and fatigue such a thought gave her.
An emotional reaction, and one she wouldn’t indulge. Men like Matt sought the powerful woman, but a woman wanted a man with whom she could be just a woman occasionally.
The problem was that Savannah only wanted a man like Matt.
The chicken and egg dilemma of human nature.
She gave a mental shrug, set her briefcase on the table. “Where are your child prodigies, Matthew?”
His wunderkind, they were called.
Lucas. Jon. Ben. Peter. The young, hungry men who supported him in the world of manufacturing, now a very dynamic area since technology changed the production playing field almost on a daily basis. They were all attractive twenty- and thirty- somethings who worked hard in the office and played hard in the gym.
She wondered if, like a wolf pack, they showered and slept together, and was instantly amused and aroused by the visuals conjured by the thought.
Yes, Savannah, you’re definitely in a strange mood tonight.
Matt had yet to speak, and there was something in his eyes. Something similar to what she’d recognized there before. But tonight it was more direct. Unleashed. For a despicably weak moment, she was glad the length of the table was between them.
Okay, Savannah, enough daydreaming. Time to get a grip or he is going to eat you alive.
And that was entirely the wrong thought, because it summoned a flood of images so powerful they shuddered through her body. She closed her hands on the briefcase to cover the reaction, as if it were a shield she could use against his overpowering attraction.
“You call me Matthew just to irritate me. ”
“Would you prefer Mr. Kensington? Or perhaps Lord Kensington?” She added the last in a saccharine tone.
It was a standing joke in the corporate circles, the use of his middle name, bandied about equally as an admiring quip or a bitter insult.
He did not laugh. In fact, he seemed to consider the notion, then his gaze centered on her in a way it had never done before. Perusing her in detail, his attention moved from her face to her throat, pausing over the frantically beating pulse, before continuing down to her breasts, the indentation of her waist, the flare of her hip, just visible to the right of the briefcase. She suppressed the urge to shift out of view.
“If you like,” he said at last. His grin was quick and unexpected. Feral.
Pure sex. And it made her focus flounder in a wash of heat. “But I think I prefer Master, or my lord, if you’re using it. ”
She blinked. “I’m sure you would. ”
“While we’re on the subject, your name is an interesting one. ” He seated his hip on an edge of the table.
The way he was looking at her across the dimly lit room made her feel the table was not that much of a barrier after all, and that the protection of her briefcase was laughable at best.
“It doesn’t suggest a hard-edged business woman, someone able to shrivel a man’s testicles with a glance, though I have seen you do that. Almost as often as I’ve seen you arouse my men with the simple scent of your perfume, or a glimpse of those killer legs. Particularly when you lean back and cross them so modestly, and you show just the hint of the lace top of your stocking before it’s gone, like a mirage to a man dying of thirst. ”
Savannah stayed stock-still, her fingers gripping the handle of her case. “Are you making a point, Matthew, or have you lost your mind?”
“We’re discussing names, I believe, and my point is that a name very much reflects who a person is, deep inside. Savannah suggests a soft, giving woman. When I look at you, Savannah…” He paused, lingering over the name, making a flush rise on her neck. “…I see you waking up in my bed, the cotton sheets caught between your calves, that soft, luscious body molded by a satin sheath with spaghetti straps. One of those straps is falling off the shoulder, so your breast is almost completely exposed, though just not quite. And when I come to you, touch you, make you smile, all that fine, beautiful hair is rumpled and framing your face…”
His gaze flickered over the loosened tendrils that she suddenly wished she had not drawn free of her usually impeccable twist.
She pulled the briefcase off the table, a jerk of motion so he wouldn’t see that her hand was shaking.
Men did not affect her that way. “I don’t know what this is, Matthew, but it’s not a business meeting. I’m leaving. ”
“Sit. Down. ”
The snap of his voice caused her to jump, which made her angry, frosted her voice. “I beg your pardon?”
He straightened off the table, one lithe, quick movement, but his steps toward her were measured, the intent but slow paces of a wolf stalking prey. Or in his case, a shark, those dark glittering eyes promising no mercy.
“You heard me. Sit your pretty ass down, now, or I’ll wear it out so you can’t sit for a week. ”
Shock gripped her, both at the words and at the serious intent in his eyes, which told her he very likely meant the astounding thing he had just said.
She should be giving him a disdainful look, turning and making her exit, but she couldn’t make her feet move. As if his words were a lightning bolt that had immobilized her in a crackle of powerful current that charged her entire body, all the cells vibrated with apprehension and something else, something rising in her, responding to him and his ridiculous words.
He took another step toward her.
Then another. “You drive a man to distraction. Not just the sneaky bit of leg, but that drape of neckline revealing a tiny cup of lace just barely holding your breast in when you lean forward to make a point.
The way you touch your hair just behind your ear, lightly, or moisten your lips when you talk. ”
“Stop it,” she whispered. “Stop. ”
But he didn’t. Not his forward movement or his words. “That’s the thing. You’re teasing my men, but you’re challenging me. From the first moment we met, you’ve known you were mine. Every negotiation has been a dare, a taunt. You want me to prove I’ve got what it takes to make you submit, claim what’s been mine all along. ”
Why was her pulse pounding like she was hearing a terrible truth instead of the ravings of a lunatic?
“You’re a tough nut to crack, aren’t you, little girl?” He was almost around the table, and still she couldn’t move. His footfalls were silent, hushed in the carpet.
“Don’t call me that. ”
“Oh, that’s right. ” He nodded, dark brows drawing down like the shadow of a hawk’s wings. “You’re not a little girl. You’ve never been a little girl. Groomed from birth to take the reins of your father’s empire.
Daddy’s closer all your adult life, and then you stepped right into his shoes when he died. You’ve never allowed yourself to be vulnerable, never allowed yourself to be a woman, never daring to risk it.
You’ve become so good at it you don’t even know you have a warm, wet, soft pussy, aching for a cock.
My cock.
“Tell me, little girl. What would you do right now if I turned you over my knee and gave you a spanking?”
She’d gone from shock to fury, and she didn’t care what game he was playing or the fact her
panties were soaked and her hands were damp with nervous perspiration.
Yes, she had a subliminal awareness of what the slit of a skirt or a glimpse of cleavage would do to powerful men, had even enjoyed fleeting thoughts of them struggling to focus, though she’d never gone so far as he had intimated. She’d never imagined the crude reality of erections distracting them under the table.
That subliminal awareness was part of the charge. Sex and negotiation.
Power. Control.
Her eyes widened at the connection, the understanding of her own body’s unexpected response. This was the same as a negotiation, only he’d taken it to a whole new level. A level on which she had almost zero experience, and he knew it.
Her eyes narrowed and her lips firmed. He’d changed the game level, but not the game itself.
She didn’t know what Matt was up to, but she’d beaten him before. She could beat him at this as well, whatever it was. Make it to a draw, with both parties satisfied. Business played the way they normally played it was as much of a rush as sex, and the line could get thin between the two. She understood that, gripped the truth of it like a lifeline to steady herself.
“What would I do if you tried to spank me? I think I’d leave a nice set of scars down that handsome jaw of yours. ”
“You like to fight, don’t you? Let’s really fight, then. ” His voice dropped to a rumble that sounded suspiciously like a growl. “Tear at me, leave behind the civilized façade that we pretend to have at this table. Go for it. Fight me. Because come hell or high water, I’m going to have you tonight. Take you right here in this room, and have you call me Master. ”
“I think those giant balls you’re rumored to have are going to be rolling around the floor first. ”
“Hmm. ” One black brow now arched and the dark eyes glittered like coal exposed to candlelight. “I’ve never heard you be crude, Savannah. But you probably don’t realize that’s not really your way, do you?
You’ve been meeting someone else’s expectations so long you’ve never developed an identity of your own.
Geoffrey engineered the perfect chameleon, straight from his loins. If you’d submit to me, maybe you could find out who you really are. ”