“If you don’t run away from me, if this is more than a moment, then one day I want you to pose like this, for a painter. I want a master to paint you, as you lie here, naked, on my furniture. I want him to paint you when you’re exactly as you are now, all sex and longing, aching for release.”

“And what would be done with this painting?” I breathe.

“It would hang in the best gallery in New York . . . or perhaps it would be presented at Christie’s . . . and men would bid for the right to hang you on their wall. They’d bid and compete for you, because they would never have seen anything so beautiful in their lives.”

“You want my image to hang on some rich man’s wall for everyone to leer at?”

“Oh, they wouldn’t leer, warrior. They’d admire you, like I do. You’re a work of art. You’re everything that’s beautiful about eroticism.”

His words border on insanity. He doesn’t know me . . .

. . . does he?

Does he know who I am? Am I being made a fool of?

But then, I’m not the only one whose desire is exposed here. I can see that even now. I reach my hand out, touch his pants where the fabric is now pulled taut. Slowly I raise my arms above my head, naked but no longer trembling, no longer hesitant.

His hand caresses me, from my breast, down my leg again, and then he bends down, kisses my stomach and navel, then my hip. I feel his tongue flick against my inner thigh and then he blows gently on that one spot, making my skin feel cool and alive. He continues to nip and tease until finally I feel his tongue against my very core, circling my clit. I begin to writhe against the sofa, the leather gently pulling at my skin as he increases the pressure, his tongue just a little more demanding, pressing flat against my clit now, making me moan. And it’s then that I feel his finger press inside me. I suck in a sharp breath as his index finger makes a circle inside my walls and his tongue circles in reverse around my clit . . .

And when the second finger enters me, the world explodes. My nails scratch at the leather as I search for something to hold on to, something external to stabilize me as I lose all sense of control.

But there is no stability, not right now, not anymore. All I have is this fiery, unpredictable passion for Lander. When he raises himself up, pulls off his jeans, it’s all I can do to keep from tearing into him, throwing him on the floor and mounting him.

He steps away, but I grab his hand, easily reading his unspoken intentions. “I’m on the pill; you don’t need a condom.”