Bloody Hell.

Tristan Kingsley was in a dark spiral. Anger and confusion raged beneath his skin like wildfire. His mother had sent his carefully constructed plan toppling down like a house of cards when she'd announced her engagement to an American investment banker.

Her engagement wasn't the worst part of the whole situation. No, the fucking demons in hell were laughing at him for the ironic twist his destiny had just taken. Because five minutes ago, Katherine Roberts had walked through the door with her father, Clayton.

My Kat. The girl he'd ruthlessly pursued and sweetly seduced until she'd succumbed and let him take her to bed. The girl he'd fucked so hard she'd had trouble walking the next morning. The girl he'd opened up to about things he'd never shared with anyone. And he still hadn't had enough of her to satisfy his obsession.

My stepsister. Future stepsister. And, two nights ago, they'd rammed his headboard into the wall so hard, it had left gouges in the wallpaper. He'd had rough, wild sex before, but with her… She'd been so innocent, a bloody virgin, but she'd responded like a sex goddess…

I can't think about her anymore. How her body felt underneath me—skin to skin. How perfect she tasted. How she screamed out my name when I exploded inside of her…

Kat hadn't moved from the doorway to the library of his mother's townhouse. The moment she'd come in the door and recognized him she'd frozen. Her face pale, her lips pursed, and her gray eyes wide as saucers. She hadn't known this was coming, just as he hadn't.

It was a bloody nightmare.

They'd left Cambridge separately for their Christmas holidays, each facing the same situation. His mother had told him that she was in a relationship with someone, and Kat's father had told her the same. Neither he nor Kat could have guessed that their parents had met in London and started dating. Or gotten engaged. It was a strange, and now damnable, coincidence. Of all the eligible men in London his mother could have met and fallen in love with, it had to be Kat's father?

At twenty—five years old and working toward his Master's in business, Tristan could afford little time for distractions, aside from the string of nameless girls he'd slept with before Kat. He had classes and the pressures of his father's estate looming over him. That was the price he had to pay for being the future Earl of Pembroke.

Until he'd walked into the Pickerel Inn pub one night and his world had changed forever. Kat, a luscious, intoxicating first—year undergraduate, had walked up to the bar for a drink and they'd talked. Something had seemed to pull them together, like invisible strings. She'd leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed him. The way she'd felt in his arms, her lips melding with his… In an instant he'd gone from a man who could have any woman he wanted to a man who wanted only her. She was nineteen, and so inexperienced, he wanted to drag her back to his bed and never let her leave until he'd shown her everything he knew about the art of sexual pleasure.

My obsession, my erotic fantasy. Mine. All mine.

At least she had been until his mum had blown his plans to hell with the news that Kat was going to be his stepsister. As a stepsister, a family relation, she'd be untouchable. Their parents simply wouldn't allow it. He'd had plenty of encounters with protective fathers in the past when stories of women he'd seduced had come out in the papers. But Tristan had always held his ground, had never done the honorable thing and married any of those girls. It was just sex. This wasn't the Victorian era. If a woman went to bed with him, that was her choice and no father could demand Tristan that do anything afterward.

I've never been a saint. I certainly can't be one now, not when I want Kat as badly as I do. But how was he going to get Kat all to himself if his mother and her father were watching over them both during the holidays? He'd have to find a way to keep their relationship a secret. It was the only solution. And if the paparazzi ever got wind of his affair with Kat, his father would have him executed in the square of the London Tower just to make a point.

Kat was completely unsuitable—at least she would be in his father's eyes. And for the moment, his father still had a firm grip on Tristan's future, including whom he could date. As an American with no titles, no connections, and no vast fortune, she offered nothing that his father would approve of. Tristan clenched his jaw. He despised that his father had so much control over his life, but that was how it had always been. As the only heir to the estate, he had a duty to the land and the people who worked on it to keep things afloat. His father still controlled the family purse strings, and Tristan knew he couldn't abandon the estate.

Knowing his father would never approve of Kat didn't stop Tristan from wanting her, and it certainly didn't deter him from his intent to sleep with her again. It simply made him all the more aware that he'd have to be careful about how he got her back into his bed so that no parents could discover them.

His mother, Elizabeth, was still standing by Kat, and she made a tiny gesture with her head, encouraging him to come over to his future stepsister. All he wanted to do was walk over and kiss Kat senseless…but their parents were staring at him.

I ought to get out of here before I make an arse of myself.

How was he going to survive three weeks with Kat under the same roof and not touch her whenever he wanted?

"Tristan, don't be rude. Stop sulking by the fireplace, come over here and say hello," his mother hissed in admonishment.

He walked over to Kat and held out a hand, pretending they'd never met, never touched, never shared his bed, exploring each other's bodies. It was harder than he expected to resist reacting to her. He smiled politely, fighting off the urge to chuckle when her pale cheeks blossomed with color.

She must be remembering, as he was, how it had felt when he'd pinned her down and made her beg for him to do a thousand dirty, erotic things to her. And he had, oh, he had. And that was making it so hard to keep from reacting with the intimacy he desired. There wouldn't be a scorching kiss, no stroking of hands. Not while their parents watched them with hawk—like precision.

"It's lovely to meet you, Kat." He sucked in a breath as she slowly took his hand and shook it. Sparks of heat burst between their palms, that undeniable chemistry that drew him like a planet orbiting a star. Cosmic, inescapable. This was why he couldn't walk away, why he had to touch her, keep her close to him. She was the first woman that had fascinated him both in bed and out.

She seemed to be trapped in a daze, their hands still connected. Her gray eyes were full of desire, but he could see she was trying to suppress it.

"Hi," she said finally.

He could tell by her ashen face that she was only going to get out the one word and nothing else. Her full lips quivered, and he longed to haul her into his arms and kiss her, perhaps bite those lips playfully until she smiled again.

Why wasn't she like every other girl he'd slept with? They'd been forgotten the moment they'd left his bed. A parade of pretty faces and nothing more. But he knew every freckle on Kat's face, every curve of her tempting body, how her mouth felt as she'd explored his skin, eager, and yet new to the experience of sex. How could he ever forget being with her? There was no way he'd give her up, not when there was so much left to discover between them.

They were both damned now.