Sliding his touch down her arms, he came back with one of her hands and wrapped his tie around her palm, twice. Then he did the same to the other, leaving a length of slack fabric as a tether between them, held in front of her. "Hold the wrap in place with your thumbs in your palms," he said, pressing them briefly to underscore the command. Then he put his arms under her back and legs to lift her, turning toward the retiring room with its inviting long couch.

"No. We can't." Panicked, she started to struggle.

"Cass, easy." As he laid her down on the couch, he bracketed her there with one arm pressed against the sofa back, taking a seat on the edge. "You think the only problem is we didn't finish. I don't know about you, but this is a hell of a lot more appealing than sandwiches. Lets test your theory, get it out of the way. If it's not anything more than that, then what's to object to? Door's locked, and I think you've already seen that my desire for you isn't going to make one minute of this negotiation any different. I'll play fair, if you do. Though with your looks and that fuck-me scent of yours, you already have an advantage."

/ can't. I can't possibly handle this. But if she ran, she was as much as admitting it was more. She needed this done with. Maybe he was right. Maybe it would get it out of the way. Was that what he really thought? Why would it bother her if he did?

Sensing victory in her silence, he drew her tethered hands up to her face, fitted the slack of the tie between her parted lips before she expected it, then guided her wrapped wrists behind her head, lacing her fingers so the slack drew taut along her cheeks, stretching the corners of her mouth like a bit. She could get free, but the feeling was of being bound.

The gag deprived her of the ability to say anything further, while giving her something to bite down on, as if he anticipated her involuntary need to scream.

Leaning over her so she was staring up into eyes darkened to slate, he delivered words as potent to her as the restraint. "You move your hands, and I'll spank you. You understand me?"

Holy Jesus. She was almost tempted, but she managed to hold on to enough of her pride to shoot daggers at him with her eyes. His lips twisted, but his finger dipped, slipped several buttons of her blouse so the strapless corset was visible. "Beautiful. Try your best to hold on to that control, Cassie. I'm going to shatter it."

He didn't understand how much she wanted him to shatter it. She just couldn't afford it. . .

. Ah, God. What was he doing now?

He found the side zipper to her skirt and then worked it off her, laying it to the side with as much care as his suit jacket. "That skirt's so tight it should be illegal," he muttered.

"You can't even bend in it."

She'd have responded to the slur on her very carefully chosen wardrobe, but he was staring at the tiny thong she was wearing, which barely covered the swollen oblong shape of her pussy. Her half whimper would have shamed her except for the burst of additional fire it sparked in his gaze.

"You wouldn't touch me before. Wouldn't let yourself." He drew her focus to his crotch as he used one hand to cradle what was there, giving her a tempting glimpse of its shape and impressive weight. "This is all for you. I'd like to thrust it into your pussy, inch by inch, stretching you, feel you writhe to take all of me, until I'm in to the hilt and you've got nothing to hold on to but me. You think about that, because today all you're going to get is my tongue. Then you can tell me if that finishes us.

"It was more than a moment in a glade," he continued, lifting his gaze to lock with hers.

"When I got back, there wasn't a woman in this city I wanted. Just you. I found that scent you wear at the department store. Honeysuckle's Kiss. It's a body spray. The minute the salesgirl sprayed it on her arm, I recognized it, though the smell of her skin was different.

I nearly disgraced myself like a teenager. As it was, I got a hard-on that I'm sure made her want to call Security."

Or drag him into a back room and rape him, Cass thought.

"Don't be afraid of me, Cassie. For God's sake, I knew you for twenty minutes, and missed you for a month. This can't be a freak coincidence. Since you're not screaming for Security, I've got to believe I'm not alone in the way I feel. We both know there's really nothing to prevent you from leaving. Show me something, give me something. Do you want me to stop? You like it better this way, don't you? Bound?"

She could tell how hard it was for him to give her a choice. He probably overwhelmed women on a regular basis. But she had to wonder if he knew how devastating it was to be asked like this.

I shouldn't. But she nodded. She wanted him more than she wanted sanity or the ability to face herself in a mirror, this craving desire to be restrained, overpowered by him. The door was locked. She could give herself thirty minutes.

As if knowing how tenuous her capitulation was, he ripped the thong away, going to one knee next to the couch in almost the same motion. He dragged her up to his mouth, guiding one leg over his shoulder, locking the other around his waist so her heel rode on the curve of his taut ass.

His mouth was even better than she remembered. She'd brought herself to climax over the memory a million times, at least in her mind. Only once in reality, the only moment she could take for herself. In desperation, she'd pulled into a park on the way home, sat in the deserted parking lot at twilight, and fumbled open her slacks. Pushing herself to roaring orgasm in a matter of minutes, she didn't dare to think what would happen if a police officer cruised through.

It was just sex. Just hormones. But that couldn't explain why, in a room of available, beautiful men, she wanted only him. Well, sure, there was the powerful memory they shared. If that was true, once this was over, she'd be fine. But even if she wasn't, she'd take Ben to dinner. It was a goodwill gesture she'd already intended on Johnson's behalf, taking the legal advisor to dinner for all his setup efforts. Since Ben had given her a thorough checking-out, it would send a concise message to Lucas. Tell him that this was it. All she was interested in giving.

Her rapid staccato of thoughts stuttered off into oblivion as his mouth took over her mind.

Holy God. She remembered that thought from last time, and all the banked longing that had built up since that day surged against the dam she'd created to contain it, threatening to send the flimsy rationalization that reinforced it spinning away in churning Whitewater.

Lucas knew just the right way to integrate the wetness of his tongue with the pressure of lips, the friction of his jaw, the licking alternating with suckling, then just soft, heated breaths, the feather of his lips in tiny, bare kisses. The limning of the labia, a delicate slow entry of the tongue between them. A caress of his nose against her clit, then a firm suction of the mouth over the whole area, tongue going into a swirling, rapid dance, over the labia, the clit, plunging in and out until she was rocking up against his mouth, going insane because he wouldn't let her find a rhythm, dragging her higher and higher.

Keeping her breath controlled through this wasn't going to be possible, but the harder she tried, the wetter and hotter she got. The restraint of her hands galvanized it. She imagined the tie in her mouth would have her lipstick on it. He'd probably wear the damn thing for the next two days, just to torment her. She'd had nothing from the glade but her memory, and that had haunted her for over a month.

He put his hands beneath her, and now, in addition to that oh-so-clever mouth, he began to knead her buttocks, his thumbs playing in that tender crevice between them, causing a motion that roiled the pressure of his mouth evenly across her clit.

The orgasm tQre through her, images assaulting her so she couldn't resist it. She wanted to pull him up her body, feel all that delicious weight upon her, holding her down, his cock seated between her legs. She wanted to touch him, close her hands over him, even her mouth. That was something she hadn't thought much about before, but she'd like to drive him crazy like this, feel his balls convulse under her squeezing fingers, the flood of his seed on her tongue. Have the intimacy of it on her skin. Inside her body.

Now she thanked God for that tie, for unless K&A had made their bathroom soundproof, her scream would have brought Security running. As he kept his mouth working her, it became unbearable, but she had the wrapping too tight and couldn't think clearly enough to twist herself free. She made the plaintive cries in the back of her throat, clamping on the tie like she was having a seizure. It felt so . . . good. Almost as good as she wanted it to be, with a man on her, in her, that need for intimacy she couldn't have. But of course, that was the problem with something like this. It led to wanting that.

She was panting, short, shallow breaths, and as he came up her body, his gaze followed the flush across her fair skin from the orgasm, the enhanced size of breasts shoved upward by a corset and heaving with quivering pleasure. His mouth was glistening with her juices, and when he brought it down to hers, he captured her open lips over the tie, teasing her with darts of his tongue over and under it, giving her the taste of herself. She wanted to suck on his lips, and he was kind, at last pushing the tie beneath her chin which, while forcing her head to tilt upward, also allowed her to nip at him. Framing the side of her face with one large hand, he swept her jaw with a thumb.

The slippery fabric made the tie drop down, pressing on her windpipe. Before she could figure out how to deal with the discomfort, he'd slid beneath it, holding it away from her, collaring her throat with those warm, strong fingers.

"Lucas." It slid from her mouth, a plea. As she arched up into him, wanting to feel his chest against her, he obliged. When he put his knee on the couch, he pressed it between her legs and she moaned against his mouth at the rippling aftershock. He kept cradling her face, his thumb remaining under the tie, stroking her throat as he kissed her, tender now. Intimacy. The bliss of the word was a warning, interjecting itself into her consciousness.

"Hold on a second, sweetheart." He lifted off her at last, went to retrieve his coat. As he turned, his gaze coursed over still quivering limbs, making her cognizant of the fact she was lying there in her corset and open silk blouse, her hands still twined behind her head.