Page 26

'Now put your hands behind your head.'

He did. 'What's got into you?' he said, deciding that whatever it was he liked it a lot.

'Nothing yet,' she purred, climbing on top of him and giving him a long slow kiss that blew his mind.

She kissed her way down his neck and along his collarbone, taking her time, making him burn up with need and he had to fight to keep himself where he was.

A tremor racked his body and he marvelled that she could do this to him.

Thought that perhaps he should encourage her to do it more often.

Because there was definitely something to be said for female dominance in the bedroom.

Especially with the way she was sliding her hands along his arms and curling his fingers around the bars of her bed-head, giving him an eyeful of soft pillowy cleavage.

His body tight with arousal and his heart thudding with expectation, Will couldn't resist. He lifted his head and gently nipped her flesh.

She shuddered, then smiled seductively down at him, slipping her hands beneath the pillows as she wriggled on top of him.

He was contemplating undoing the strings of her corset with his teeth, when out of the corner of his eye he caught a flash of red fur, and before he knew it she'd surged up and forwards and cuffed him to the bed.

There, thought Bella, triumph roaring through her as she drew back and admired her handiwork. That hadn't been too difficult, had it? Not when Will had been so pleasingly and predictably cooperative.

Her plan had gone like clockwork and now she had him exactly where she wanted him.

Naked. Exposed. Unable to take control and distract her, and completely at her mercy.

Once she'd driven him demented with her hands and her mouth, he'd be begging her for release and willing to tell her exactly what his issue with commitment was.

Assuming she managed to hold out that long, of course. She was so turned on by the sight of him lying there trapped that part of her wanted to ditch her plan and simply straddle him and sink herself down on him.

Hmm. There'd be plenty of time for that later, she told herself. Having spent so long firstly devising her plan, and then umming and aahing over whether to go through with it, she wasn't about to back out now.

'What the hell is this, Bella?' Will's voice was tight and sharp and Bella suppressed the flicker of alarm that darted through her. So he had a thing about control. That was tough. Right now, so did she. 'I'd have thought it was perfectly obvious,' she said with a smouldering smile.

'Unlock me,' he snapped.

'Soon.'

'Now.' His jaw clenched and his eyes blazed.

'No.' Where would she start? Should she work her way from top to bottom and build up slowly? Or should she just go straight for the sexual jugular, so to speak?

'Bella, get the bloody keys.'

'Too late,' she said silkily, drawing them from her cleavage and throwing them out of the window before turning her attention back to the magnificence of his body.

Whether she lingered or hurried, she doubted he'd be the only one tormented.

Heat pummelled along her veins at the thought that she could do anything with him she wanted, and her head swam.

And then through the fog swilling around inside her head, she heard Will swear violently and she frowned, her gaze snapping up to his face. The flicker of alarm she'd managed to suppress a minute ago flared into life. God. He looked utterly horrified.

Her heart lurched and her brain raced. During all her deliberations, she'd imagined he might have put up token resistance to being handcuffed to her bed-head, but she'd never imagined he'd be quite so appalled.

But maybe it wasn't appal. Maybe it was something else.

Because actually, now she was looking at his face, she could see that he'd gone so ghostly pale that if it hadn't been for his tan he'd have been white.

Sweat beaded on his forehead and he was shaking.

His muscles had tensed and his veins on his arms and neck bulged. He looked as if he was in agony.

Oh, God, thought Bella, her heart hammering now with real panic. Perhaps this hadn't been such a good idea after all. Perhaps she ought to release him. Right now.

Hastily she reached up and pulled a pin from her hair.

She unbent it with her teeth and then leaned over him.

She swiftly picked first one lock and then the other, and within a split second he'd yanked his hands free, surged up and twisted round so that Bella was flat on her back and he was looming over her, his eyes wild and the pulse at the base of his neck thundering.

'You really shouldn't have done that,' he said roughly.

'I'm sorry,' she said, meaning it even as her heart pounded and her breath caught in her throat.

'You will be.'

For a moment he hovered there, staring blindly down at her, his face tight and his body even tighter.

But gradually the fierce blaze in his eyes ebbed, his expression relaxed and the colour returned to his face.

Bella waited, not sure what to do or what to say.

And then he dragged in a shaky breath, jerked away and fell back on the bed.

Giving him a few moments to recover, she lifted herself up onto her elbows. 'So what was that all about?' she murmured once his breathing had regulated and she'd felt whatever it was that had taken hold of him dissipate.

'Nothing.'

She rolled onto her side and looked at him closely. If he thought he could get away with brushing her off like that he could think again. No way was she letting this lie. It was too intriguing for words and she intended to get to the bottom of it whether he liked it or not.

'You're pale and you're shaking,' she said softly. 'That's not nothing.'

Will sighed and rubbed a hand over his face and forced himself to calm down.

The terror and the nausea that had slammed into him the minute he'd realised what she'd done were fading and it was fine.

He was fine. But for a moment there, when Bella had tossed the keys out of the window, he'd thought he'd been about to pass out.

'It's no big deal,' he muttered. 'I'm just not a huge fan of being locked up, that's all. '

'Clearly. But why not?'

He set his jaw. 'Who is?'

'Plenty of people.'

'Well, I'm not one of them.'

She bit her lip and frowned, her gaze turning far too probing for his comfort. Long seconds passed before she spoke again. 'You flinch every time you come into my shop, I've never seen you get into a lift and you'd rather walk than take a taxi.'

It was a statement rather than a question and Will felt too sapped of energy to argue. Instead he avoided her eyes and muttered, 'Yes, well, automatic locking mechanisms aren't really my thing.'

'So what is it? Claustrophobia?'

He heard the curiosity in her voice and gritted his teeth. 'Cleithrophobia actually, but it's not as bad as that. It's not a phobia. It's just a minor thing I have a slight problem with.'

'If you say so,' she said and he heard the hint of a smile in her voice. 'What's cleithrophobia?'

'The fear of being locked in an enclosed space.' He stifled a shudder. ' I don't particularly enjoy being locked in any space, enclosed or otherwise.'

'I see. I'm sorry.'

'It's fine.'

Another few heartbeats of silence followed and Will wondered if he could hope that that was it. But then she said, 'So what happened?' and his stomach plummeted.

'What do you mean, what happened?' He tensed and stared fixedly at the ceiling.

'Well, something must have caused it. In the first place, I mean.'

He closed his eyes as if somehow that might deter her from asking any more annoyingly persistent questions, and said vaguely, 'I don't really remember.'

Bella let out a soft 'you don't fool me' kind of a laugh and then pressed herself closer. 'Maybe I could help.'

'I doubt it.'

'Try me.'

Will opened his eyes and stared at her. 'Are you going to let this go?'

'I'd rather not, but I can't make you tell me if you don't want to.' She shot him a shrewd look. 'Of course your reluctance to talk about it could lead me to believe that it's not quite as trivial as you'd like me to think.'

Will narrowed his eyes at her. Perhaps she had a point.

Irritatingly enough. And then he felt something inside him deflate.

Oh, what the hell? If she was interested enough to want to know, then he'd tell her.

What was such a big deal about it anyway?

It wasn't as if it were that huge a part of his life.

'Fine,' he muttered. 'When I was a child I got stuck in a cupboard.'

'How?'

'The door swung shut behind me before I could stop it.'

'And it had one of those automatic locking mechanisms you're not too keen on?'

Feeling oddly cold, Will pulled the sheet over the lower half of his body. 'Exactly.'

Bella shifted closer and put her head on his shoulder and a hand on his chest. 'How horrible.'

'It wasn't particularly pleasant,' he murmured, deciding that understatement might well be the way to get through this. Understatement, sticking to the facts, ignoring how he'd felt at the time and concentrating on the feel of her tucked into his side. 'I was ten.'

'How long were you in there for?'

'About eighteen hours.'

Bella twisted slightly to look up at him, her eyes widening as she propped herself up on an elbow. 'Crikey. And you weren't missed?'

'Not for a while. I was supposed to be staying over with a friend.'

'So what happened?'

'We had an argument. I came home early.'

'And?'

He paused. Took a deep breath and steeled himself against the images he'd thought he'd buried in the depths of his memory, but were now flashing at the front of his brain in full, hideous colour. 'And I stumbled across something I shouldn't have.'

She went still at his side and her hand stopped meandering over his chest to come to a rest over his heart. 'What was it?'