"I don't want to damage him," I said. "Or his family. I"

"Please. In a situation such as this you will say whatever it is that you think I want to hear, and I will believe none of it because of this situation. Shall we skip that stage?"

A last turn around a big four by four and we were on the ramp, the daylight harsh, dazzling.

"Okay," I said. "I just"

Will stood there, waiting. Just standing casually in the middle of the exit, his hands on his hips, and those predator eyes trained on the car.

With a squeal of brakes, we came to a halt, only inches from Will.

Will shook his head, slowly, threateningly, and he mouthed the word "No". This car really was sound-proofed.

Maninder switched gears and reversed, then accelerated forward, trying to get round Will.

The s.p.a.ce was never going to be big enough.

As we drew close we accelerated and then it was too late to pull out, too late to stop or swerve and Will's expression changed to one of surprise, then a sudden flash of fear, his jaw flapping open, and then I blinked.

I wanted to keep my eyes closed. I would have done anything not to hear the thud of impact, not to feel it.

As my eyes opened, Will was in the air. Had he been hit already, or had he jumped?

He came down on the hood of the Jag, his limbs spread to catch his fall, and then there was the thud, and a crunch as the near-side wing of the car hit a concrete bollard.

The car heaved, straightened, and started to speed up again, heading up the ramp with Will still clinging on, one hand around the base of a windshield wiper.

We swerved again as Maninder tried to throw him off, and then I watched as Will raised his free arm and brought his elbow down, hard.

The windscreen crazed, frosting over in a network of tiny cracks.

Another blow and Will's arm was through, a hand fumbling blindly.

We swerved again, and then Will's hand found purchase on the top of the steering wheel.

Next thing I knew, my chest felt as if it was exploding as the seat-belt pulled tight against the weight of my body.

The car had stopped. We'd hit something, another bollard, maybe, or a wall.

Maninder grunted, his words unclear, then he turned to me and raised one heavy ham of a fist.

The windscreen shattered inwards, and Will was halfway through, both hands on Maninder, yanking him sharply forward.

Maninder roared with rage and swung a hand, catching Will in the chest and knocking him back.

As Maninder fumbled with his seatbelt, I watched almost in slow motion as Will's fist swung through, and up, connecting with jaw, making Maninder shoot backwards.

Another blow, and Maninder was bleeding from his nose, or a cut, I couldn't see.

I squirmed and pulled, but still couldn't free myself, and then Maninder had found his buckle and released his seat-belt. In a mighty surge he stood, leaning forward through the broken windscreen, reaching for Will, pushing him and then scrambling out after him.

Will hit the ground first and was struggling to his feet as Maninder clambered over the car's sprawling hood, and then as Maninder swung his legs forward Will hooked one of his opponent's feet from under him with a quick kick to the ankle.

Maninder fell hard on the concrete and turned, dazed, as Will followed through with another kick to the head... Just a single blow and Maninder lay motionless.

My ears were ringing, my heart pounding. I could barely breathe as I sat there, watching as Will straightened. He had been ruthless. This was no namby-pamby playground fight. It was no holds barred, whatever was needed. And somehow Will had beaten this man-giant and saved me.

Just then, another man appeared, a security guard. As he approached, I recognized him from the lobby of the apartment building.

Will stood there, peering in at me as if dazed, and then he realized we had company.

He turned, nodded, and said, "Nasty accident, Danny. Would you mind tidying up? The keys are in the car. I wasn't here, okay?"

I made it to the elevator. Right up until the door slid shut with that almost imperceptible hiss. Then I crumpled into his arms, adrenalin turning to release, to pathetic, sobbing tears as he held me close, one hand on my head, the other on my back.

"I'm sorry," I gasped. "I didn't"

He silenced me with his mouth. A gentle, tender kiss. A touch that calmed me.

Always trust that first reaction, the gut response. That's what I had believed.

But when a man races down the service stairs of his apartment building, overtaking an elevator that had stalled while Maninder made his threats... when that man leaps onto a moving car to rescue you...

When a man does something like that, it kind of makes up for things.

I needed air, I needed to fill my lungs deep and not feel confined.

I stood on the balcony, the Thames dark, its surface p.r.i.c.ked by dancing reflections of the city's lights, while Will made a call.

Seconds later, he was there, standing behind me, his arms wrapped around my body.

"I was just arranging for some help for Danny the concierge." The guy who Will had left to clear up.

Then: "It's me who should be sorry," he said. "I had no idea... Maninder's been with the family for years. He..."

It was my turn to twist awkwardly, painfully and silence him with a kiss.

"I've told you before," I said. "Will you just stop apologizing?"

"The family," he said. "They're not as peculiar as you seem to think. They're not a bad lot."

"That's what Maninder said, too."

"I hope you'll give them a chance. But whatever happens, I know what I want. I know what I need. If anyone doesn't like it, I don't care. I'll protect you. I'll always protect you."

I turned.

"Will you just join the twenty-first century?" I said, reveling in the way his arms curled around me. "I don't need your protection, and I'm not going to come between you and the people you love. I know what it's like to lose a family. How could I do that to you? And anyway, I hear that you're a negotiator, the glue that binds together. Maybe you just need to use your skills a little."

He laughed at that, and pulled me closer, dipping his head to kiss me on the cheek, to drag his lips down across my jaw to the side of my neck, his touch electric, sending all kinds of sensations through my body.

As I tipped my head back and his mouth found the top of my collarbone, I felt tugging at my blouse and then it was free of my little pencil skirt, and his hands slid up, finding bare skin, the narrowing of my waist.

I found his belt loops, hooked my fingers in them and pulled him hard against me. I wanted him so badly then. I slid a hand round, in between us, finding hardness, the length of his shaft straining against his pants.

He undid my top b.u.t.ton, then lost all patience, and ripped at the front of my blouse like he had that time in his Alpine hotel.

"So that's how you want it, is it?" I asked.

I took hold of his neck tie and jerked it sideways, back, pulling him away from me.

"You like it rough, do you?" I said. "You like a bit of fight?"

I let go his tie and pushed him back through the doorway, into the bedroom.

Surprised, he staggered back until his legs. .h.i.t the bed, and then I was on him, forcing him back, down onto the mattress, pinning him there while I ground hard against him.

My skirt... Too tight for this. I stepped back and he lay there, watching me as I pulled my blouse clear, then unzipped my skirt and let it fall. Stepping out of it, I stood there, and let him look. Dark blue and black lace push-me-up bra to emphasize my cleavage, matching thong, sheer black hold-ups, and those utterly fabulous, s.e.xy Jimmy Choo stilettos.

I returned the look as he lay there, my poor, battered lover, his shirt ripped, a smear of blood on his face.

"The shirt," I said. "Take it off for me. Let me watch."

His eyes... those dark, predator eyes, locked on mine as he sat up, reached for his top b.u.t.ton, the next, the next, as he paused with his shirt hanging open over that tight torso and then reached for a cuff, pulled, then the other, and the shirt came clear.

That was a hard, fit body. The muscles almost sculpted, the chest rising and falling, a pulse visible in his neck. A fighter's body. A body ready for action.

"The handcuffs."

He twisted, leaned over, and slid open the drawer where he kept those heavy metal cuffs with the scuffed leather padding. Two sets, one for each wrist.

I took one hand, turned it gently in mine, and then closed a bracelet around the wrist. The other hand, more roughly this time, more urgently... raising it so I could enclose the wrist in a cuff and snap it shut.

"On your back."

This wasn't about him. It wasn't even about us, right then. It was about me: my wants, my needs, my desires.

I spread his arms and snapped one cuff to the metal bed-frame. Leaning over him, my b.r.e.a.s.t.s crushing against his bare chest, I secured his other wrist.

Another kiss, brief and chaste, if there's such a thing as a chaste kiss when your man is handcuffed to a bed and you're leaning over him in gorgeous lingerie.

A brief pressing of lips, then pulling away as he craned his head up for more.

My lips, dragging down his body. Across his chest.

The tiny hardness of a nipple. I parted my lips, flicked that little nub with my tongue, making him tense, gasp.

"Is this what you want? A strong woman? One who will stand up to you. One who will dominate you, and be dominated?"

Swirling my tongue around his belly-b.u.t.ton, all too aware of the straining hardness in his pants, now so close to my face.

I kissed my way down, teasing that sensitive area between navel and that hardness. Running a finger along his constrained shaft, as my lips and tongue and teeth worked across the line where his belly hair started to thicken, that tender line between abs and hip that made him twist and squirm at my touch.

I freed his top b.u.t.ton, found the zipper, started to ease it down.

Kissing him through the fabric of his shorts, finding the base of his hard shaft, pressing my lips against it, around it, then kissing down, kissing him through his trousers, finding the swollen head of his manhood and pressing my mouth down against it.

Just as he pushed up against me, groaning, wanting me... I pulled away, turned, reached down to untie a shoe, pull it clear, and then the other.

Black socks, they came away easily, and now I had turned fully, straddling him, presenting my a.s.s to him as I leaned down and ran my tongue around a little toe, across its neighbor, working the s.p.a.ces between them, the sensitive skin beneath.

When I reached the big toe, I sucked it in, swirling my tongue around and across it.

Still sucking on his toes, I reached under myself with one hand, found the waistband of his pants and tugged. They wouldn't come clear, so I turned again, took his pants and shorts in both hands and slid them down his legs.

His manhood jerked clear, long and hard and now flat up against his belly, reaching way beyond his navel, as I pulled his pants and shorts clear.

"Oh my," I said, leaning back, kneeling between his spread legs, taking in the sight of his naked, eager body.

Slowly, eyes locked on Will's, I moved forward, lowering myself. Finally, I pulled my look away from Will's and glanced down. The veins on his long shaft stood out, pumped, pulsed, and his foreskin was pulled back, exposing the wet, purple head of his manhood.

As I approached him, my hair fell forward like a curtain. I swept it back, and dipped my head, my tongue finding the base of his shaft, pressing down, firmly against it.

He started to soften, started to shrink.

I closed my lips around him and pulled upwards, pa.s.sing his length through my parted lips and then sucking that purple head into my mouth, trying to stir that hardness again.

I looked up the length of his body, confused. Had he been more hurt than I thought in the fight? Was he in pain?

He wasn't watching me. He was looking past me, across the room, and that's when I realized that something was seriously amiss.

"Please. Don't let me interrupt."

That soft, deep voice, so low I had to strain to make out the words.

I raised my head and Will's flaccid member plopped out of my mouth and flopped down against his belly. And when I turned my head I saw Maninder standing in the doorway, his face a b.l.o.o.d.y mess, and his hands poised ready at his sides.

"It was so good of you to secure him," he said now. "That makes my task so much easier."