Living in Secret: Living In..., Book 3 by Jackie Ashenden Page B

years of that marriage, they’d never spoken about their brief, passionless couplings. Never discussed them. Because there wasn’t any reason to. He’d assumed both of them were happy with the way things were.
    Yet judging from the look on her face, perhaps that wasn’t the case after all. Did he actually want to know? No, perhaps not yet.
    “I thought what happened just now was fairly intriguing,” he said. “Or did you fake that orgasm?”
    Something flashed in her eyes. “Would you even be able to tell if I did?”
    His free hand came out before he could stop it, taking her chin between his fingers, holding her fast. In the silence of the room, he could hear her indrawn breath. “I would know, Victoria,” he said, not bothering to hide the steel in his voice. “Believe me, I would know.”
    The fierce gleam in her eyes didn’t lessen. She stared up at him for a long moment, making no move to escape his grasp. And he felt the desire inside him turn over and over, until he was only holding onto his control by a bare thread. He’d never seen this woman either, this challenging, confronting woman.
    Christ, he was this close to losing it.
    “One week,” she said abruptly. “But not the kind of sex we’ve been having for the past five years. I want more than that, so if you can’t give it to me, then I guess I’ll have to be stuck with no divorce.”
    Satisfaction rolled through him and he let it show on his face. “We will not be having that kind of sex, don’t worry.” Moving his thumb, he brushed it across her mouth in a subtle reminder and she shivered. “The kind of sex we’ll be having is how I want. When I want. Anywhere I want. You will not get a say.”
    Again her eyes glinted, anger moving in the depths like a deep ocean current. Her lips parted against his thumb. “That doesn’t sound like I’d get anything from it.”
    “You can really say that? After you came so beautifully for me?”
    “If you want to have sex with me, Connor, you can just do so now and get it over with.”
    He pressed his thumb a little harder against the softness of her lower lip. “But that’s the thing, Victoria. I don’t want to just have sex with you. I want to fuck you. Repeatedly.”
    A blush stained her cheeks and her lashes lowered, hiding her gaze. And he knew he had her. She wouldn’t refuse.
    Slowly, he pushed his thumb into her mouth, feeling heat and wetness against his skin, watching as her red lips closed around it. A bad thing to do when he was so close to the edge, but he couldn’t help himself. He wanted to give her a reminder before he walked away.
    “The only down side for you,” he went on softly, “is that if you want my cock, you’re going to have to earn it.”
    Then abruptly he pulled his thumb from her mouth. Released her wrist.
    And turned and walked out of the room without a backward glance.
    Come at seven. Wear this. Don’t be late.
    C.
    Victoria put down the note on the table then gazed at the small box that had been delivered to her apartment that morning, along with the note. She wasn’t quite sure she wanted to open it and see what was inside. Nothing good probably.
    Or alternatively, something very good…
    Her jaw tightened as desire clenched hard inside her. No. Just because she’d done something incredibly illicit last night did not mean she wanted to keep on exploring that part of her. Last night was supposed to be a one-off. It wasn’t supposed to continue.
    God, even thinking about it, Raphael inside her, Connor watching her…
    Despite herself, an insistent dark pleasure rolled through her, seductive and hot.
    Victoria turned sharply away from the box on the kitchen table and walked a couple of steps to the window, staring out at the view over Auckland’s harbor that had attracted her to buy the apartment on the wharf in the first place. The view of the sea with the crescent of the harbor bridge just off to her left, the dark triangle of Rangitoto to the right,