The Master's Mistress (5 page)

She could feel the pulse of Rogan’s arousal against the flatness of her stomach as he pressed her even closer against him. Every long, thick, hard inch of him throbbed rhythmically against her, in a promise that would ease the increasing ache between Elizabeth’s own thighs as he surged powerfully inside her.

Rogan knew he had to stop this. Now. Before things got completely out of control.

Except she tasted so good. Felt so good. The softness of her curves was a perfect fit against the hardness of his.

All of her was perfect, Rogan discovered as he moved his hand beneath her blouse to touch the silky heat of her bare flesh, caressing upwards, until his fingers curved about the soft, up-tilting swell of her breast. Not too small. Not too large. Just a perfect fit in the palm of his hand.

His own body throbbed anew as Elizabeth gave a throaty groan and her head dropped back to break the kiss. As Rogan moved the soft pad of his thumb against the puckered pout of her nipple her breathing becoming laboured and ragged, and he kissed down the length of her creamy throat to push aside the collar of her blouse so that his tongue and teeth could seek out the hollows at the base of her neck.

She tasted better than anything Rogan had ever experi
enced before. The feel of her skin against his lips was a beguiling combination of feminine softness and spice.

He could feel the heat of Elizabeth’s arousal as she pressed her hips into his, sensed how ready she was for him.

So ready Rogan wanted to lie her down on the carpeted floor and take her right here and now. To thrust into her time and time again, until she screamed out his name as she climaxed, wildly, fiercely, as spasm after spasm of pleasure wrapped itself around him and she took him over that edge with her.

Rogan nudged her back towards the desk, feeling the added pressure of her body against his as the wood pressed against the back of her legs. He pushed those legs apart to step in between them, grinding his arousal against her tempting heat in an effort to relieve some of the fierceness of his own need.

He succeeded only in increasing that need until he could only move rhythmically against her, the barrier of their clothing no hindrance to the heat, the satisfaction he found between Elizabeth’s legs as he continued to surge against her. Again and again. Harder. Faster. Until Rogan felt he would lose his mind if he didn’t soon possess her for real!

This was insane, Elizabeth acknowledged achingly, as she felt the thick length of Rogan’s shaft pressed against the swollen nub between her legs, creating a fire deep inside her that quickly spread and threatened to flame totally out of control.

She couldn’t do this…

She
wouldn’t
do this!

‘No, Rogan!’ she gasped, even as she pushed against the hardness of his chest. ‘No!’ she cried again, entangling her fingers in his over-long dark hair and pulling his head back
and away from her when her verbal protest had no effect on those questing, arousing lips. ‘No,’ she said again firmly, and she looked up appealingly into the unfocused darkness of his eyes.

Eyes as wild, dark, and dangerous as those of the lethal predator she had initially thought him to be!

The very air between them seemed to crackle with tension, and Elizabeth could only wait tensely to see if her pleas would have any effect. Because if they didn’t then she knew she was seriously in danger, crushed as she was between Rogan and the desk, every hard muscle and sinew of his body imprinted upon her own. There was no way, absolutely no way, that she would be able to physically fight off a man as large and fit as Rogan undoubtedly was. And at this moment, breathing in his scent, still weak from the touch of his hands against the bareness of her flesh, she wasn’t sure that she really wanted to…

She continued to stare up at him for long, timeless seconds, not breathing, not moving, the palms of her hands damp with tension, her legs trembling beneath her.

His jaw clenched even as the fierceness slowly left the dark unfathomable depths of his eyes. He stepped abruptly away from her, the muscles still tense in his back as he turned away from her to smooth the wildness of his hair back from his face and draw deep, controlling breaths into his lungs.

Allowing Elizabeth to draw in a couple of much-needed breaths herself.

What on earth had happened just now? More to the point, how had it happened?

She rarely even dated, let alone allowed men to get close to her in this way. This totally physical way!

She hadn’t exactly
allowed
Rogan to get close to her; he had just taken the opportunity.

And she had responded…

Responded to that animal magnetism that drew her like a moth to a flame. To the hunger of his lips on hers. To the caress of his hand against the bareness of her skin. To the fierceness of his hard and demanding thighs pressed so intimately against hers…

Elizabeth felt another warm rush of heat between her legs just at remembering the hardness of Rogan’s thighs pressed against the throb of her own arousal. An arousal he had found with unerring accuracy as he rubbed himself against her and took her ever higher, ever nearer to a release she had never known.

She had wanted Rogan just now. Desperately. So much so that she wouldn’t have been able to stop him if he had chosen to continue kissing and touching her. If he had thrown off their clothes before laying her back on the desk and satisfying their desire for one another.

Dear God…!

R
OGAN
was still breathing raggedly as he turned back to face Elizabeth. ‘Well, that was—’

‘Stupid!’ she supplied forcefully, her cheeks flushed and her eyes brightly accusing, her breasts rapidly rising and falling beneath her blouse in her agitation.

His mouth compressed. ‘I was going to say
unexpected
…’

This spiky woman—a lecturer in History who catalogued libraries in her spare time, for heaven’s sake!—simply wasn’t his type. Absolutely not.

Except it had aroused Rogan just to be able to pierce through all that prim self-righteousness. To see this obviously controlled woman totally come apart in his arms…

Rogan lived his life as he wanted. As he chose. And where he chose. With no involvements, emotional or otherwise. That had worked for him for the past fifteen years, and he fully intended for it to continue working for him for the foreseeable future.

Even if Elizabeth Brown had succeeded in getting to him, in breaching his guard, in a way Rogan couldn’t remember any other woman ever doing before…

His mouth thinned. ‘You’re right, it was stupid,’ he ac
knowledged harshly. ‘Let’s just forg—’ He broke off as his mobile began to vibrate against his hip. ‘Excuse me.’ He took the mobile off his belt to take the call—no doubt a telephoned answer to one of the e-mails he had just sent.

Elizabeth didn’t know which of them she was most angry with. Herself for having responded to Rogan in the way she had. Or Rogan for the way he had so readily agreed their behaviour had been stupid.

The latter, probably…

‘Tell her I’ll call her when I have the time,’ Rogan said decisively into his mobile, even as he kept his coldly dark gaze fixed steadily on Elizabeth. ‘I don’t give a damn what she wants, Grant; you can tell her I’ll call her when I’m good and ready!’

Her? Don’t give a damn what she wants? I’ll her call when I’m good and ready
…

Rogan couldn’t have told Elizabeth any more clearly that there was already a woman in his life. No doubt a woman who also lived in New York. A woman who had believed she could trust Rogan to be apart from her for the few days he would be in England without the fear that he would end up with another woman in his arms.

Another woman who had allowed Rogan to kiss and touch her in a way she had never been kissed and touched before!

‘What did I do wrong now?’

Elizabeth had been so full of self-condemnation for her own gullibility that she hadn’t even realised Rogan had ended his call and was now studying her from between narrowed lids. ‘Who said you had done anything wrong?’ She glared at him.

He scowled. ‘Your disgusted expression said it for you.’

Elizabeth scowled at him. ‘I can’t imagine what makes you think that.’

‘Male intuition?’

‘Men don’t have intuition!’ she flashed back.

‘Ah.’ He grimaced. ‘You’re one of
those
.’

Her eyes widened. ‘I
beg
your pardon?’

Rogan shrugged. ‘A man-hater.’

Elizabeth felt heat in her cheeks at the taunt. ‘I
don’t
hate men.’

‘Just me, hmm?’ he said knowingly.

Elizabeth only wished that she
did
hate this man. But the truth was just being in the same room with Rogan disturbed her more than any other man ever had. As for being kissed by him, touched by him…!

‘Not at all, Rogan,’ she denied coolly. ‘But I had no sooner walked in here and found you using my laptop than you began kissing me—which begs the question, how did you get past my personal security code?’ Elizabeth frowned as she suddenly realised access to her computer was supposed to be protected by that code.
Supposed
to be. It obviously hadn’t been enough to stop Rogan from accessing it.

So much for Rogan’s thinking that kissing Elizabeth might divert her attention away from the fact that he had been using her laptop earlier!

‘You really don’t want to know.’

Her stance became one of stubborn determination. ‘Oh, I really think I do.’

Rogan smiled nastily. ‘I have a doctorate in Computer Analysis, remember.’

Auburn brows rose challengingly. ‘And that allows you
to violate another person’s personal laptop any time you feel like it?’

It actually allowed Rogan to access almost any computer system anywhere in the world any time he felt like it!

He grimaced. ‘More or less.’

Elizabeth folded her arms in front of her chest. ‘How much more or less?’

Elizabeth Brown was dogged as well as intelligent, Rogan acknowledged ruefully. ‘Give me a computer, almost any computer, and I guarantee that in a matter of minutes I will have access to all its stored information.’ He gave an unapologetic smile.

‘Isn’t that illegal?’

Rogan’s smile widened into a hard grin. ‘Some might call it that, yes.’

Her mouth thinned. ‘What do
you
call it?’

‘Useful.’

Elizabeth gave a disgusted shake of her head at the complete lack of apology in his tone. ‘And you don’t see anything wrong in that?’

Rogan made an impatient movement. ‘Why should I, if it gets the job done?’

She became very still. ‘What sort of job could you possibly do that requires that you intrude on information stored on other people’s computers?’

He snorted. ‘If I told you that I might have to kill you afterwards!’

‘Stop teasing me, Rogan.’

‘Who says I’m teasing?’ He quirked dark brows.

‘
I
do.’ Elizabeth glared at him.

‘I’m not in the habit of explaining myself or my actions
to anyone, Elizabeth. And, where I come from, sharing a few kisses with someone doesn’t give them the right to question, or to poke and prod into other parts of that person’s life.’

She drew her breath in sharply. ‘I wasn’t—’

‘Oh, yes, you most certainly were,’ he rasped. ‘And, enjoyable as those kisses were—and probably would be again, given the opportunity—’

‘Which there
won’t
be!’

‘I think you should know that I don’t do permanent relationships!’ Rogan concluded harshly, as if she hadn’t interrupted.

Elizabeth had never felt so uncomfortable and humiliated in the whole of her life!

Rogan couldn’t have told her any more clearly not to read anything into the kisses they had just shared. As if! Elizabeth was as anxious to forget them as he obviously was.

She gave him a scathing glance. ‘Well, that’s just fine—because neither do I!’

He looked at her speculatively. ‘Does that mean you do casual instead?’

‘It means that where you’re concerned I don’t do any sort of relationship whatsoever! We’re only here together at all because of circumstances.’ And Elizabeth wished now that she hadn’t been goaded into staying on. ‘I suggest that for the rest of your time here we stay well out of each other’s way!’

Rogan gave a terse inclination of his head. ‘I’m glad we got that straightened out.’

‘So am I!’ Elizabeth had never felt quite so much like hitting someone as she did Rogan at that moment.

He gave a slow, taunting smile. ‘Does that mean you won’t be joining me for dinner?’

Dinner? Elizabeth was so angry—with herself as much
as Rogan—that she wasn’t sure she would be able to eat anything for the rest of the day!

Her chin rose. ‘I’ll be quite happy to have a tray in my room.’

‘That seems a little unfriendly, don’t you think?’

A frown appeared between her eyes. ‘I thought we had just agreed that neither of us
does
friendly?’

‘Oh, I do friendly. Just not for ever.’ Rogan regarded her mockingly. ‘Did you eat dinner on a tray in your room when my father was here?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Then you don’t need to do it now, either,’ he pointed out.

Need? What Elizabeth
needed
was some time—and space—away from Rogan Sullivan, in which to regain some of her shattered composure. ‘I would like to get on with some work now, if you don’t mind.’ She deliberately turned her back on him.

‘No problem,’ Rogan came back nonchalantly. ‘I’ll see you at dinner.’

Elizabeth continued to stand unmoving in the middle of the library long after she knew Rogan had gone.

Rogan had kissed her, and she had kissed him back. Damn it, she hadn’t just kissed him, she had been hungry for him! Hadn’t been able to get enough of him! To get close enough to him! Still ached with wanting him…

He was everything she had ever fantasised about. Everything she had never thought to encounter in her quite frankly boring academic life, she told herself wryly.

Maybe.

But for her to have totally lost all inhibition with a man she knew nothing about was seriously worrying.

She knew Rogan had kissed her as if he’d wanted to
devour her. As if he’d wanted to taste and touch every part of her. As if he’d wanted to bury himself deep inside her and—

She knew
nothing
positive about the man!

Rogan had arrived in the middle of the night. The only way of contacting him was through a PO Box in New York. He had used her laptop, somehow bypassing the security code, without even bothering to check who it belonged to. He had totally dismissed the need to contact his girlfriend.

Worst of all, he was mysterious about his past, and obviously had no intention of sharing any important details about himself with her.

Elizabeth hadn’t just been stupid when she had responded so wantonly to Rogan, she had behaved totally recklessly. And reckless was something that she never was where a man was concerned. Let alone a man who had so reminded her of her father, with his claim of wanting no permanent ties in his life…

Leonard Brown. Handsome. Charming. Secretive. And totally immoral…

Leonard had been working for industrialist James Britten as one of the man’s senior managers when he had first seen Stella Britten. A tiny red-haired beauty of only twenty-one. Adored by her father, and surrounded by dozens of young men who wished to capture her heart, Stella had barely noticed thirty-year-old Leonard on the occasions when she visited her father at his office.

Then Stella’s father had died unexpectedly, and suddenly Leonard was there, offering comfort, a shoulder to cry on, someone to lean on. Offering to help her deal with everything that needed to be dealt with now that her father was
dead. James Britten had left no son to inherit. Only Stella, his beautiful, oh-so-grateful and very quickly so-much-in-love-with-Leonard and pregnant daughter.

The two had been married within six months of James Britten’s dying, and, although the company had had to remain in Stella’s possession, Leonard had taken over as chairman within three months of their marriage. Something that had suited Leonard perfectly, as he had been able to leave the work to others whilst he wined and dined and travelled abroad ‘on business’.

Over the years Leonard had found a woman, or women, in every foreign city he visited—despite the fact that he’d had a wife and daughter waiting for him at home in London.

A wife who had loved him so much she had been willing to overlook Leonard’s affairs as long as he always came home to her. But as the years had slowly passed she had become more and more disenchanted and bitter over the man who simply couldn’t, or wouldn’t, remain faithful to her. To the extent that Stella had eventually begun drinking whenever Leonard was away from home, in an effort to block out all thought of him with those other women.

Stella had been drinking heavily the night she had driven into a brick wall and been killed instantly…

Eighteen-year-old Elizabeth had stood beside her mother’s newly covered grave only days later, and had watched as her father wept for his dead and disillusioned wife. She had sworn to herself there and then that she would never,
ever
love someone in the same helpless way that her mother had loved her father.

In the same way Maggie Sullivan had loved
her
husband?

It was ironic—unbelievable, really—that two people who were as unalike as Elizabeth and Rogan undoubtedly were had both been shaped into the adults they now were by the unhappiness of their parents’ marriages.

Elizabeth: solitary, serious and academic, determined never to fall in love.

Rogan: just as solitary, but wild and untamed—untameable!—and just as determined never to fall in love…

‘Glass of red wine?’ Rogan indicated the glass he held. ‘Elizabeth?’ he prompted with a frown as she made no effort to move away from the doorway of the drawing room.

But for the moment Elizabeth couldn’t move. In fact, she had been rooted to the spot from the moment she had first entered the room and seen Rogan.

A Rogan who looked so handsome this evening he literally took her breath away!

Over the last twenty-four hours she had become accustomed to seeing him in the black clothing and boots he habitually wore, and which somehow seemed to suit the aura of danger that always surrounded him.

Tonight he wore a silk shirt the colour of freshly brewed espresso coffee that hinted at the muscled chest beneath rather than emphasised it, and a pair of expertly tailored trousers in the same dark coffee colour. With his long hair brushed back from that intelligent brow, and those dark, enigmatic eyes, Rogan appeared every bit as threatening, if not more so, as he had in the black clothing he preferred.

‘Elizabeth?’ Rogan pressed again impatiently; what on earth was wrong with the woman?

After her earlier comments concerning the clothes he wore, he had decided to change before dinner. But as the time to eat had drawn nearer, with no sign of Elizabeth, he had been starting to wonder if she was going to join him after all. If he hadn’t frightened her off completely earlier this afternoon after almost taking her on top of his father’s desk!

Only to turn a few seconds ago and see her standing in the doorway. Unmoving, and warily silent. So far in their acquaintance Elizabeth had seemed to have plenty to say about everything. Including himself.

Not that it was any chore to just look at her. Her auburn hair was arranged in its usual perky style, those sooty lashes perfectly framed the deep blue of her eyes, and she had brushed a peach gloss onto the fullness of her lips. In a fitted knee-length sleeveless dress of midnight-blue silk, Elizabeth was certainly easy on the eye.