He’d meant to humiliate her. In spite of Bree’s corrupt, hollow soul, she’d always dressed modestly. She never showed any skin—ever. Even when she’d done her best to entice the men at the poker game, she’d lured them with her words, with her electrifying voice, with her angelic face and slender body. But she’d been completely covered from head to toe, with jeans and a leather jacket.
Vladimir had never seen this much of her bare skin. Not even the night ten years ago when he’d proposed, when they would have made love if they hadn’t been interrupted. The lingerie should have looked slutty. It didn’t.
The pale pink color reflected the blush on her cheeks. She looked innocent and young. Like a bride on her wedding night.
Anger and frustration rushed through him. Each time he tried to humiliate Bree or teach her a lesson, she stymied him.
Furious, he crossed the bedroom. Reaching out his hand, he heard her intake of breath as he ripped off the short silken robe, dropping it to the floor. His eyes raked over the creamy skin of her bare shoulders. The slip of silk beneath barely reached the tops of her thighs, and the flimsy bodice revealed most of the curves of her breasts. He saw the thrust of her nipples through the silk, and was instantly hard.
Bree’s cheeks burned red as she glared at him. “Are you happy?”
“No,” he growled. He roughly pulled her into his arms. “But I will be.”
Her eyes glittered. “So you won me in a poker game. Is this what you wanted, Vladimir? To make me look like your whore?”
He saw the shimmer in her eyes, the vulnerability on her beautiful face, heard the heart-stopping tremble of her voice, and felt that same strange twist in his chest. It’s nothing more than an act to manipulate me, he told himself fiercely. Damn her!
“You sold yourself to me of your own free will,” he growled. “What other word would you use to describe a woman who does such a thing?”
He heard the furious intake of her breath, saw the rapid rise and fall of her chest. But as she drew her hand back to slap him, he caught her wrist.
“Typical feminine reaction,” he observed coldly. “I expected more of you.”
“How about this,” she hissed, ripping her arm away. Her damp blond hair slid against the bare skin of her shoulders. “I hate you.”
His lips curled. “Good.”
“I wish to God we’d never met. That any man but you had won me.” Her eyes flashed fire. “I’d rather be right now in the bed of any man at the table—”
Her voice ended with a choke as he yanked her against his body. “So you admit, then, that you are exactly as I’ve said. A liar, a cheat and a whore.”
Her beautiful hazel eyes widened beneath the dark fringe of lashes. Then she swallowed and looked down. “I was a liar, yes, and a cheat, too, but never—never the other,” she said in a small voice. She shook her head. “I haven’t tried to con anyone for ten years. You changed me.” Her dark lashes rose. “You made me a better person,” she whispered. The pain and bewilderment in her eyes made her seem suddenly young and fragile and sad. “And you left.”
And he felt it again—the tight twist in the place where his heart should have been. As if he were an ogre standing over a poor peasant girl with a whip.
No! Damn it! He wouldn’t feel sorry for her!
He’d show her that her overt display of a wobbly lower lip and big hazel eyes had no effect on him whatsoever!
Bree Dalton didn’t have feelings, he told himself fiercely. Just masks. He glared at her. “Stop it.”
“What?”
“Your ridiculous attempt to gain my sympathy. It—”
It won’t work, he meant to say, but his throat closed as he was distracted by the rise and fall of her breasts in the tiny slip of blush-colored silk when she breathed. He could see the shape of her nipples and the way they trembled with every hard breath.
And he was rock hard. Their mutual dislike somehow only made him desire her more, to almost unsustainable need. What magnetic control did she have over his body? Why did he want her like this? She was a confessed liar, a con artist. She wished she’d lost her body to any man but him. How could he want her still? It was almost as if she wasn’t his slave at all, but he was hers.
And that enraged him most of all.
A low growl came from the back of his throat. He was in control. Not her.
His hands tightened into fists, his jaw clenching. He wanted to push Bree against the bed, to kiss her hard, to plunge himself inside her and make her scream with pleasure. He wanted to make her explode with pure ecstasy, even while she hated him. A grim smile curved his lips. She would despise herself for that, which would be sweet indeed.