But she’d lost the moment, lost all of her momentum. She couldn’t even begin to get the sexy act going right now, so she decided to wait for another opportunity.

“I had a—clumsy moment,” she explained, when the silence stretched on even longer. “An unexpected collision with a vase of flowers. So I raided your pantry for supplies. I hope that’s okay.” Seeing his eyes shift to the broom in her hand, she shrugged and added, “I was just about to return them.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Caleb replied, with so much composure that she decided perhaps she had misread his earlier reaction. He sounded as cool as he always did. “Just leave them here. Someone will find them.”

That was just like him. Spoiled and lazy and inconsiderate to everyone else. He probably thought of his staff as subhuman. Only existing to wait on his every selfish demand. But, composing her expression, she propped the broom and mop up against the wall and laid the dustpan beside them, then gave Caleb a questioning look. “That’s okay?”

He gave a halfhearted shrug. “Sure,” he murmured. “Why not?”

Now she was rethinking her conclusion about having misread him, because his expression definitely seemed a little distracted. And his eyes were still crawling over her face, hair, and body.

It was a little unnerving, and she wondered if he was so weak willed as to be undone by some long, gold, unbound hair and a length of bare legs.

And then she wondered if she was so weak willed as to still want him to fuck her, despite everything she knew.

Needing to get some momentary distance from him so that she could hide her confusion, Kelly turned around and went back into her room, leaving the door open so he could follow.

Staring at the floor, she saw that there were still a few leaves and petals scattered around on the dark wood and a damp spot still visible from the spilled water. With a sigh, she went to get a towel out of the bathroom, kneeling down on her hands and knees and rubbing at the residual water.

She felt like an idiot. She would have done much better if she could have arrived unexpectedly in his room in a flurry of fluttery prettiness. Now everything was all fucked up, and she stupidly really liked how he looked half-undressed like that.

Mid-thought, she remembered that Caleb had evidently been coming to her room just now, so she glanced up and began, “What did you—”

When her eyes focused enough, she saw that he was holding her bracelet. The one she’d left at the spur of the moment in the bathroom. “Oh,” she mumbled, reaching up and snatching it out of his grip. “Sorry. I was taking a bath there earlier and must have forgotten it.”

She’d almost forgotten she’d left it there, but she wasn’t ready to take advantage of it right now. Her whole plan for the night seemed to be spiraling out of control.

She stifled a groan. Furious. At Caleb. At herself. At this whole fucking, unnatural, brutally ironic situation.

Why had she ever thought she could succeed?

She scrubbed at the floor roughly, taking her frustration out on the remaining moisture, although by now the wood was almost totally dry.

When she heard Caleb make an almost inaudible sound, she glanced up at him and gulped. She had to look down again to compose herself—to her response to what she’d seen in his face.

Caleb’s eyes were hot and possessive. The look was absolutely unmistakable. His face was slightly flushed, and his breathing had picked up momentum.

Kelly knew when a man was aroused, without even having to check his crotch.

She felt a surprising wave of dominance wash over her as she realized that this might actually work after all. The evening would take shape a little differently than she’d intended, but her ultimate goal might still be in sight.

She needed to get close to him—if she was ever going to discover a way to bring him down—and the only way to get close to him was with sex.

Scrubbing more vigorously at the floor, she realized that the neckline of her T-shirt was hanging very low, revealing a substantial expanse of her jiggling breasts, which were bouncing from her motion. Her hair was hanging down in a swinging fall of gold, and her ass was displayed to good advantage.

With her eyes downcast, she kept rubbing the floor at Caleb’s feet.

“Kelly.” His voice was rough and thick—with the unmistakable note of desire.

“What?” she mumbled, pleased when the T-shirt slipped to expose her shoulder. “Sorry I broke the vase.”

“I don’t care about the damned vase. You don’t have to do that.”

She was overly hot from her exertion on the floor, but she could feel a dark kind of pleasure well up at the knowledge that he was falling for her after all. “I don’t want the water to stain. The floors are beautiful.”

“Kelly.”

She stopped, and sighed deeply, which pushed her nipples briefly against the thin fabric of her shirt. She rose to her knees, looking up at his tense expression.

Since her face was strategically placed in front of his pelvis, she slid her eyes lower until they were focused on his groin. Stared at the obvious bulge beneath the tightened fabric of his gray trousers.

Kelly gasped. Her eyes flew up. “Caleb?” She made her voice into a breathless question.

And that did it.

He pulled her up by the shoulders and, before she was firmly set on her feet, hauled her body toward him. He closed his mouth over hers in a hard and hungry kiss.

Her first instinct was to jerk back. To get away—in any way she could—from his face, body, heat, scent, and touch. She knew who he was now, and she wasn’t allowed to want him. But she fought against the instinct. She made herself relax in his arms. Sent her real self far away, where Caleb could never touch it.

His hands were firm and strong around her rib cage. He slid them down to cup her butt, pulling her snugly against his arousal.

At the insistence of his urgent lips, Kelly opened for him. She felt his tongue in her mouth. She tried to focus on impersonal details, not who this was—not what she was doing.

Details were safe and could be revealing. She might be able to use them in some way, if only she could keep her wits about her and not weaken in this.

The fingers of one of his hands kept twitching on her ass, tightening in erratic little squeezes around the soft flesh. His other hand had moved higher to get a fist of her hair—and then to start stroking rhythmically down the long length of it.

Caleb was breathing heavily through his nose as his tongue plundered her mouth. And his kiss and his breathing grew more and more frantic, as if he were drinking her in, inhaling her, devouring her.

Kelly’s hands clutched at the muscles of his back—and it wasn’t difficult to make herself dig her fingernails in through the fabric of his soft shirt. Still trying to concentrate only on details, she made a little grunt against his mouth when she felt his teeth.

His pelvis was thrusting against her middle—in small, unconscious pushes. The hard bulge felt strangely unnatural against her lower belly. But it wasn’t important. It was something she had felt many, many times before.

It didn’t matter who this was. It didn’t matter that her body was responding a little to him. He was just a man. And men were all the same. Made up of parts. And the parts could use you only if you let them.

She wasn’t going to let Caleb use her, although he couldn’t know that yet.

His teeth were still grazing her lips, and he was groaning low in his throat. Kelly realized that he was groaning from pleasure because she was grinding her hips against him—skillfully responding to the steady advances of his pelvis. Her breasts were smashed up against his chest, and she was rubbing them against him—partly because she wanted him more turned on and partly because she was getting a little turned on herself.