Sweet Revenge

public. Talk to me, Addy. I want to help you.”
    It was ridiculous, but he sounded as though he meant it. A part of her she’d strapped down for years wanted to believe him. “Why?”
    “Don’t be an idiot,” he muttered, and brought his lips to hers.
    Her initial struggle died on a moan. The passion she tasted was no less volatile than the passion she felt. His hands were in her hair, rough, possessive, as he dragged her head back for more freedom. For the first time she let her hands roam, search, linger over a man’s flesh. The need started out as a warmth in her stomach, then spread to a heat, then an ache, then a fire.
    He knew it was madness to want her this way, to forget his priorities and sink into her. But she was all softness and strength, all trembles and demands. The scent radiating from the skin of her neck made his head spin as they tumbled onto the bed.
    He forgot finesse and style in an explosion of desire. Whoever she was, whatever her secrets, he wanted her now more than he’d ever wanted before. He’d coveted diamonds for their inner fire, rubies for their arrogant flame, sapphires for their flash of blue heat. In Adrianne he found all the qualities he’d found before only in the gems he’d stolen.
    She was small, agile. Her hair wound around him as they rolled on the bed, wrapping him in scent and texture. The taste of scotch lingered on her tongue, intoxicating. There was a desperation in her response that stripped his control layer by layer.
    When he slipped his hand under her sweater to find her breast, full and soft, he felt her heart thundering under his palm.
    It had never been like this. Year after year, time after time, she’d convinced herself it could never be like this. Not for her. For the first time she wanted completely, as a woman. To use and be used. As her body responded, struggling toward pleasure, arching toward release, the fear stabbed through.
    She could see her mother’s face, wet with tears. And she could hear, muffled through her childish hands, her father’s groans of satisfaction.
    “No!” The word ripped out of her as she shoved Philip away. “Don’t touch me. Don’t.”
    In reflex he grabbed her wrists as she swung out at him. “Goddammit, Adrianne.” Fury had him dragging her against him, bitter accusations on his tongue. They died before they could be spoken. The tears trembling in her eyes were real, as was the terror behind them.
    “All right, steady.” He gentled his grip and fought to keep his voice low. She was a roller coaster he still wasn’t certain he wanted to ride. “Stop,” he ordered when she continued to fight him. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
    “Just let me go.” Her throat was so tight even the whisper hurt. “Keep your hands off me.”
    Temper rose again and had to be battled back. “I don’t attack women,” he said evenly. “I’d apologize if I’d read you wrong, but we both know I didn’t.”
    “I’ve already told you I didn’t come here to sleep with you.” She jerked one hand free, then the other. “If you expect me to fall on my back just because you want to be entertained, you’re going to be disappointed.”
    He drew away from her slowly. That was a measure of his own control. “Someone’s given you a bad time.”
    “The simple fact is I’m not interested.” Before he could touch her again, she pushed herself off the bed and grabbed her bag.
    “The simple fact is you’re afraid.” He, too, rose from the bed. He wouldn’t know until later that the sheets would smell of her and she would haunt him for the rest of the night. “Of me, I wonder, or yourself.”
    Her hands weren’t steady when she lifted the strap to her shoulder. “A man’s ego is an unending fascination. Goodbye, Philip.”
    “One more question, Adrianne.” She was at the door, but she stopped, tilting her head. “We’re alone here, no recorders. I’d like the truth for once, for myself. Personally. Are you involved in all this because of a man?”
    She should have ignored him. She should have given him her coolest smile and walked out, leaving his question unanswered. She would ask herself a dozen times why she didn’t. “Yes.” She saw her father as he’d looked striding down the wide, sunwashed halls, ignoring her mother’s tears and her own silent cries. “Yes, because of a man.”
    The disappointment was deep and as ripe as his anger. “Is he threatening you? Blackmailing you?”
    “That’s a total of