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he wanted to play a game of chicken, she could do that, too. Because she knew that he was no more in control of the electricity sizzling between them than she was. She remembered that, if nothing else. And clearly he remembered it, too, or why else would he have brought her here to punish her?
    He wasn’t the only one who could call a bluff.
    She stood then, slowly. Sinuously. Making sure his eyes tracked her every move—and smiling when they did.
    “I’m shameless,” she told him huskily, meeting his gaze. “But you know that already.”
    She hooked her fingers beneath the soft wool of her sweater, and then pulled it up and over her head.
    She heard a quiet curse. And then the sweater was off. She tossed it to the side and then she stood naked to the waist before him, without so much as a bra between them. She’d never needed one, and so her breasts jutted out, proud and full as the cooler air caressed them, and she felt more powerful in that moment than she had in years. Like some kind of avenging goddess, the kind men like Jack Sutton should know better than to toy with.
    “Put on your clothes,” he rasped at her, a harsh command.
    But she could see the bright, hard desire that glittered fierce and wild in his dark eyes. She could see the way his body tightened, the long, corded muscles in his neck and the long lines of his powerful body pulling taut. The way he clenched his hands. He tossed back the rest of his drink with a quick jerk and then slapped the tumbler down on the nearest table—but he didn’t move away from her.
    “Poor Jack,” she taunted him, glorying in his weakness, thrilled that she could use it as a weapon against him—thatshe had any weapon at all. “There are so few things you want that you can’t have, aren’t there? Too bad for you I’m one of them.”

CHAPTER FIVE
    “Y OU’VE lost your mind,” Jack bit out icily, ordering himself to step away from her—though he did not move so much as an inch. He made his voice even colder, even crueler. She should have frozen where she stood—but instead she seemed to shimmer with more heat than the fire in the fireplace. “I’ve already had everything you’re offering. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
    But she was Larissa Whitney, and he should have remembered that she could not be embarrassed. That she was incapable of feeling such a thing. There was a hard look in her emerald eyes, more like precious stones tonight than he remembered them being before. She only smirked at him, and leaned back against the arm of the sofa, putting that lithe, lush little body of hers on display.
    And he, God help him, could not look away. She was as perfect as he remembered. Her skin looked like spun sugar, peaches and cream, and the warm vanilla scent of her rose in the air, making him uncomfortably hard. Ready. He wanted to pull her into his arms. He wanted to suck those pert, dark nipples into his mouth, and lick them until she writhed against him. He wanted to make her climax, screaming his name.
    But he wouldn’t allow himself to do anything like that,no matter how hard he was. No matter how much he wanted her. She was toxic.
    “I’m not embarrassed,” she said, her voice so disarmingly, distractingly sweet. Just one more of her lies, he told himself. Harshly. “Isn’t this what you wanted? Me—naked and prostrate before you? Begging for your help so you can piously, self-righteously turn me away?” That crook of her lips twisted further, and something seemed to twist in him, too. “Or maybe you don’t like to do things halfway,” she murmured suggestively, and her delicate hands went to the low-slung fly of her jeans.
    “Stop!” The word was out before Jack knew he meant to speak, ringing in the air between them. Her eyes narrowed, and he realized with an uncomfortable start that she was very, very angry.
    “I don’t understand,” she said, her voice too crisp. Too pointed. It made something hard and uncomfortable move through