“It was just an idea,” she said. “I think I’ll get some work done.”

  “You’re embarrassed, aren’t you?”

  Oh great, now they’d have a talk. “It doesn’t matter. Really. You’d better power down your laptop before the battery dies.”

  “Shit. I really blew it. I told you anything goes, and the minute you get really creative, I turn all Puritan on you.”

  “My idea of kink is different from yours. It’s not a big deal.” She rose from the couch, but he grabbed her hand and pulled her back down.

  “I’m getting pretty sick of this crap.”

  She pulled her hand back. “What in hell ‘crap’ are you talking about?”

  “I told you no inhibitions, and you’re pulling away from me.”

  Her jaw dropped as she stared at the idiotic man. “I told you what I wanted. It turned you off. We don’t do it. That’s all.”

  “When are you going to start standing up for yourself?”

  “You’re a real asshole, you know that?”

  “You’d better watch who you’re calling an asshole, young lady,” he said.

  What the . . . ? This didn’t make any sense at all. He might be self-confident enough to be called cocky or egotistical, but she would never have thought him aggressive or nasty. Words fled, and she could only gape at him.

  “I might have to put you in your place,” he said. “I might have to teach you a lesson.”

  Wait a minute. Could he be playing along? “What kind of lesson?”

  “The kind you won’t be forgetting any time soon. The kind that’ll make your fanny sore.”

  “You wouldn’t really do that, would you?” He would, though, because she’d asked him to. He really would do whatever she wanted. Oh my God. Her dirtiest fantasy. She could have it. If it didn’t work out, he’d stop, but if it did arouse her the way imagining it always had, what an experience it could give her.

  “I don’t want to spank you, but you’ve given me no choice,” he said. “I only need to decide if you should be naked or not.”

  “Not naked, please.” Of course, she was asking for the exact opposite. His hand on her bare flesh would hurt oh so good. Besides, the swats would make her pussy throb. Once he had her really excited, she’d need his hand everywhere—inside and out. “I’d be too embarrassed for you to see me undressed.”

  “Too bad. Get up and strip out of your clothes.”

  “If you say so,” she said. “All right.”

  “I do . . . say so.”

  After removing her shoes and socks, she rose. She’d give him a striptease as she removed her clothing. After she removed her sweater, she toyed with the front closing of her bra, opening each clasp at a time. Once it was open, she shimmied out of it and cupped her breasts. “I touch these sometimes. It’s naughty, but I like to tease the nipples until they’re stiff.”

  She did that now. She’d not only meant the display for his entertainment but it also created a thrum of desire that went all the way to her sex. She had become aroused watching him come, and now, she’d get her own satisfaction. He might not be able to get hard again so soon, but he could use his hand or even his mouth to give her an orgasm.

  Now, she went to her slacks, unfastening the waist band and then pulling the zipper down. Slipping her hand inside between her legs, she touched herself. When she brushed her clit, it responded with a sharp stab of desire. She gasped and followed that with a long “ahhh.”

  “What are you doing?” he said.

  “Touching my pussy,” she answered. “It feels so good.”

  “This is supposed to be punishment,” he said. “Finish undressing and stretch out over my knees.”

  Obeying, she bent over a little and pushed her slacks and panties down and then stepped out of them. Now, she stood before him naked and aroused. She was so exposed, so vulnerable, and that risk excited her in a way that she’d never expected. Even better, his cock seemed to come to life again, swelling and growing longer.

  “Hand me your panties,” he ordered.

  She scooped them up and handed them to him. Squeezing the material in his fist, he brought them to his nose. “Nasty, nasty girl. I’m going to make you sorry. Get over here.”

  How utterly bizarre and submissive and delicious. She spread herself over his knees, her face pointed down toward the floor. She could have sworn something bumped against her side where something shouldn’t be unless he had a hard-on. He was becoming aroused too, and given that he’d climaxed only moments ago, that meant he was finding this every bit as erotic as she was.

  “Are you sorry for what you’ve done?” he said.

  “You liked it,” she answered.

  “Shameless.” The flat of his hand came down on one of her buttocks. His long fingers covered the whole expanse of flesh. “Do I have to hit you again?”

  “You like that too.”

  “I see I have my work cut out for me.” He hit her again, this time on the other buttock and rather harder than the first time.

  He wasn’t hurting her. He wouldn’t do that. But if he could make her skin sting and feel warm, he’d have her squirming. This felt better than it had in her fantasies.

  “Ready to apologize?” he said.

  “Make me.”

  He slapped her a few more times. Thwap, thwap, thwap. Her sex throbbed, so close to where his hand came down on her. If he moved just a few inches, he’d touch the swollen lips of her pussy, and how good that would feel.

  “I hate doing this to you, but it’s for your own good.” He hit her and hit her and hit her. Firmly but not violently. Bless him, he was getting the hang of it.

  She couldn’t hold still as the arousal built inside her. Arching her back, she offered the lips of her sex for his stroking. “Don’t hit me anymore. I’ll be good. I promise.”

  “You’re lying. You just want me to play with your pussy, you sinful woman.”

  “No, truly. I’d die if you touched me. Anything, just don’t touch me there.”

  “You’re trying to tempt me.” He slapped the backs of her thighs. Now, the warmth spread all around her most sensitive places. That made the throbbing only worse, and she released moisture into the hairs that covered her sex.

  “Look at this,” he said. “Wet.”

  “Don’t touch it!”

  Of course, he did exactly that, and she almost crawled out of her skin. She let loose a cry of excitement. More, please more.

  “Disgraceful.” He dipped a finger inside her. Her muscles clamped down around it. This was torture. Would he make her come soon? Would he keep her here, so close to the edge and not push her over? How long could he draw it out?

  And had he become erect again? She twisted so that she could feel for his cock. Her fingers found it. Yes, hard. Miraculously, gloriously hard.

  “Don’t you ever learn?” he said, and he hit her again—really hard this time. She let out a yip of surprise as she almost lost herself and came.

  “How would you like it if I did this?” He slipped his finger into her again and this time rubbed it over her hypersensitive clit.

  Oh my God, oh my God . . . oh my God! He was taking her apart. Even in her wildest dreams, she’d never felt like this.

  He kept doing it, dipping into her and then coating her most sensitive flesh with the moisture. She gasped and tensed as the orgasm approached. If he did that one more time . . .

  “Now,” she cried. “Oh now. Ethan. Please, please!”

  In a moment, she found herself on her back on the couch, one foot dangling over the edge to spread her thighs. He loomed over her as he found his place and drove himself inside her. He’d filled her again. As he thrust, he hit her sweet spot over and over. She wrapped her legs around him as the whole world went crazy. Her body trembling, she gave in to the overwhelming rush of sensation. Deep inside it built and built until she could finally take no more and she climaxed, clutching at his hardness over and over.

  She couldn’t even scream but just hung onto him as he pounded into her a few more times roared with his own orgasm. He’d come again, the impossible, precious man.

  When it ended, they collapsed together, both breathing hard. Reality returned, bringing with it total pleasure, total relaxation, total joy. She’d asked him for the ultimate, and he’d made it even better than she could have dreamed.

  “Oh, baby.” He covered her face with tiny kisses. “Damn, Laura. Promise me you’ll never do this with anyone but me.”

  Her brain barely registered the words, let alone the meaning. He was right, in any case. She’d leave all the fantasy behind in this cabin. That was their deal. Only their deal had given her the freedom. He’d given her a gift she’d keep in her heart forever.

  LAURA GLANCED UP from the eggs she’d been mixing for their breakfast and found Ethan leaning against the counter in that faux casual way he had when he planned to trot out the Gould charm to get something he wanted. Amazing, but he could pull it off wearing nothing but a robe and before he’d had his first cup of coffee.

  “I didn’t know you were awake,” she said.

  “I thought I’d sneak up and watch you acting domestic.”

  “Look closely. I don’t do housewife,” she said. “But even I have to eat.”

  “I’ll cook, if you want.”

  “You’ve done enough.” Oh brother, had he. She might have to find some kryptonite to slow him down. Her pussy had a pleasantly used ache that would remind her if her mind could manage to forget.

  “There’s coffee,” she said.

  “Great.” He got a mug out of the cupboard, poured himself a cup, and then went back to lounging against the counter. “This has been really wonderful, Laura.”

  The direct address. She’d been in business long enough to know that when someone used your first name in a one-on-one conversation , when there could be no doubt of the target of the speech, it generally meant to convey intimacy. Heaven knew they’d been intimate, but mostly in a physical way.

  “I’m glad your rental car couldn’t make it through the snow,” he said. “How about you?”

  A definite manipulation. She could either agree with him or make herself appear like an insensitive lout. “It has been wonderful.”

  “I’ve been thinking . . .”

  The toaster popped up at just that moment, stopping him mid-sentence.

  “Excuse me.” She walked around him and made a big show of buttering the toast before putting two more slices of bread in and pushing down the lever. Then, she had to get to the other side of him again to put the toast onto a plate and into the oven next to the bacon.

  “As I was saying,” he began.

  “Would you get the juice out and put it on the table?”

  He studied her for a second, clear displeasure showing in his gaze. “Sure.”

  While he carried out that task, she put some butter into the frying pan. When it melted, she added the chopped onion and waited for it to sizzle.

  “Anything else you want me to do?” This time he stood closer to her, making it harder for her to avoid looking at him. She managed, though, stirring the onions around as if they required constant attention.

  “I grated some cheese,” she said. “I found only cheddar. I hope that’s okay.”

  “Of course, it is.”

  “If we’d had bell pepper, Monterey jack would have been better, but I don’t suppose that matters.”

  “I can honestly say that, in the cosmic scheme of things, cheese is not important right now.”

  “Good. I like cheddar too.”

  “Laura.” He caught her wrist and turned her toward him.

  “That’s going to burn.”

  “Let it,” he said. “We have to talk.”

  “Oh no, we don’t.”

  He had the nerve to look surprised. “What?”

  “You see, that’s the way spouses speak to each other when they’re upset,” she said. “The last time I checked, you weren’t my husband.”

  “We’ve been acting like husband and wife.”

  “We’ve been sleeping together.”

  He leaned toward her, almost closely enough for their noses to touch. “You call what we do sleeping?”

  “Actually, no. You taught me another word,” she said. “It starts with an f.”

  “We have not been fucking.”

  “Yes, we have, Ethan. Morning, noon, and night. It’s been glorious.” She pulled her hand from his, grabbed the bowl with the eggs, and tossed the mixture into the pan with the onion.

  “Do you want to know what I think?” he said.

  The other great ploy—on the surface, offering to share but in reality putting the opponent into the position of having to ask what the other person wanted. “Maybe later. I’m cooking our breakfast.”

  “Well, don’t.”

  “What is wrong with you this morning? Just when I thought we were getting along so well.” A manipulation of her own—establishing their former relationship as normal and desirable. He’d no doubt see through it, but the maneuver might buy her some time. Only, time for what? She couldn’t avoid his “talk” forever. Sooner or later he’d think up another tack and then another. She could seduce him into more sex, but even he couldn’t manage that 24-7.

  “We are getting along,” he said. “Or we were until a few minutes ago.”

  “Ethan.” She could use the direct address on him too. “I don’t know why you suddenly feel the need to make things complicated.”

  “Not complicated at all.”

  “Then, why do we need to talk?”

  “Because I’m not letting you go when we leave here.”

  There, he’d said it. He’d been building up to this for a while. Calling her “baby” of all things. He’d even made that remark about her not doing “this” with anyone else. At the time, she’d tried to rationalize that away. Now she had to face it. For some reason, he’d taken it into his head to think of this arrangement as more serious than it was.

  “I want more, Laura. I want to see what the future holds for us.” He stood there, staring at her with a deadly serious gleam in his eyes. Fixing for a fight. She’d give him one.

  “We had a deal,” she said.

  “I’m calling it off.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “Watch me,” he said.

  “Oh no.” She held up her hands as if to ward him off. “You will not do this. You cannot do this.”

  “Why in hell not?”

  “Because, the only way I could be this free with you was precisely because I wouldn’t have to face what I’d done later on.”

  “Face?” he repeated, his voice rising. “What should you have to face? You haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “I jerked you off, Ethan. I asked you to spank me.”

  “Last I heard, those things are legal between consenting adults.”

  “I don’t do them,” she said. “I’m a professional person with a reputation to protect.”

  “No one’s going to know.”

  “You will,” she said.

  “So what?”

  “I’ll have to look at you, and I’ll know that you know.”

  “That doesn’t make any damned sense, Laura.” He shoved his fingers through his hair, making it stick out in several directions. Nothing ever ruffled this man. Even matrix algebra hadn’t had any effect on him that anyone could notice. She’d managed to rattle him. Quite an accomplishment. Too bad she couldn’t enjoy the fact.

  Something started to smell. Acrid, like something burning. She glanced at the stove. “The eggs. They’re charcoal.”

  She reached for the pan, but he got it first and moved it to a cold burner. “I don’t give a damn.”

  “I may have ruined that pan.”

  “I’ll get Jeff another one.”

  “For heaven’s sake.” She reached under the counter for another frying pan. She’d started breakfast, so she’d finish it. They’d choke it down, and then she’d figure out some way to get away from him. Maybe she’d lock herself in the bathroom with her laptop and get some work done.

  When she straightened and put the new pan onto the stove, he took that from her too. “I don’t want any damned eggs. I want an explanation. Why can’t we be together?”

  “I’m not a person who jerks men off. I’m not a person who licks maple syrup off men’s penises. I’m not a person who wants to be spanked,” she said. “I could do those things only in this place for these few days. I have to leave them here.”

  He remained silent, gritting his teeth and leaning his fists against the counter.

  Damn it all. He probably couldn’t understand. He did what he wanted without guilt or second guessing himself. She’d never had that kind of freedom because her conscience would torment her with constant reminders of her improper behavior.

  “Besides, there’s something you seem to have forgotten,” she said. “You and I are competing for the same job.”

  That seemed to startle him. He straightened. “I haven’t thought about that since we got here.”

  And that startled her. They’d attended a top-tier business school and had both had rapidly rising careers. No matter what you thought of a person like Ethan Gould, you couldn’t miss the success of one of your former colleagues. In the few days they’d been here, he’d actually forgotten about why they’d both ended up on the frozen highway to begin with.

  Of course, her interview hadn’t figured uppermost in her mind while he’d been showing her body such expert treatment. Maybe neither of them had concentrated on it a lot. What did that say?

  “Neither of us are going to backstab the other,” he said.

  “Of course not.”