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His lips withdrew, moving slowly to the tip of her nose, her eyelids—each fluttering in turn beneath that infinitely seductive male mouth. Achingly, she longed for more, much more than the tantalising kisses that promised so much, withheld so much…
Her body was compliant, pulsing with frantic need, aching, wanting…
Only moments before she had been hating him and he had reduced her to unthinking, illogical rage, reduced her to tears, and now reduced her to this. And, strangely, it didn't matter now. The chemistry, the magic between them, was far more powerful than she could ever have believed possible. And he was telling her things she shouldn't want to hear, shouldn't want to know.
'So you sublimated all the sexual passion Norman couldn't answer into a pile of bricks and mortar— Monk's Hall. And, as you see it, I took it from you. And so you think you hate me for it. But you don't hate me at all, do you, Annie?'
She was almost prone in his arms now and his mouth dropped to the pulse that fluttered rapidly at the base of her throat, and she couldn't have argued with him to save her life.
'You want me, Annie, as I want you. But you're afraid to admit it.' His fingers had found the top of the fastener that secured the swamping robe she wore and, inch by slow inch, he slid the zipper down until the curves of her high round breasts were revealed for his lingering appraisal. 'I'm going to teach you not to be afraid of your sexuality, to welcome it,' he told her huskily, and she tried to shake her head, to deny that she was in any way afraid at this moment, that she would welcome his lovemaking with every fibre of her being. But the effort of speech was beyond her and she instinctively opened her mouth for his kiss as his head descended, her fingers reaching up to thread convulsively through the crisp darkness of his hair.
This time the kiss went deep, utterly beguiling her, turning her trembling body into one endless ache of yearning. In a small, almost forgotten corner of her mind she knew she was betraying herself, betraying her long-held principles. Sickened by her mother's example, she had always promised herself that she would only make love with a man if there were a long-term commitment on both sides. Casual sex was not for her. But, oddly, even that didn't seem to matter. Nothing mattered but the precious magic of what was happening between them.
She felt as if she had entered another plane, a place where nothing had substance but this sweet ravishment of the senses, the promise of sublime fulfilment.
Slowly, tantalisingly, he drew down the zipper, exposing the satiny length of her body to his shadowed eyes, and then those eyes raised to meet hers and they were smouldering with desire as he said thickly, 'Let me love you, Annie,' and her lips parted on a sigh because she knew she couldn't say no.
One word would have ended it now, she knew that, but she was incapable of saying that word and her lashes fluttered submissively on to her cheeks as the dark head bent to hers.
The subtlety of his mouth's exploration was sheer luxury, and she was trembling with a need she hadn't known existed in such intensity as his hands travelled ravishingly, learning the shape of her, the texture of her. She knew that soon she would be his, and she savoured that knowledge because she knew that something within her had changed, and soon now, very soon—
'Annie! Annie!' She was to wonder, later, at the incredible shrillness of a child's voice at night-time. 'Annie—I wanna wee-wee!'
Luke's breathing had been ragged, his body very still, in that moment before he had put her aside, very gently, and raised himself to his feet.
'I'll go,' he'd told her, his eyes on fire as he'd traced a light finger over the bruised outline of her lips. 'This shouldn't take long.'
But long enough for her to come to her senses.
Feeling as if a bucket of ice-cold water had been emptied over her, she struggled back into her robe, her fingers fumbling with the zip, almost falling over herself as she crammed her feet into her slippers.
The interruption of one highly successful seduction scene had been farcical, to say the least. She wondered if Luke had ever had such a thing happen to him before. She would lay odds he hadn't!
Like the women who would have attracted him, such scenes in the past would have been smooth as fine old brandy, highly sophisticated, glamorous.
He might have known that with boring Annie Ross things would be very different! She didn't know why he'd bothered, she thought savagely. And she didn't know whether to laugh or to cry, so she settled for being ashamed of herself instead.
And shame kept her awake for most of the night, one ear pricked for any further sound from Jamie's room. At some time, not long after she'd crept into bed and burrowed deep within the blankets, Luke had tapped lightly on her door and she had growled, 'Go away! I hate you, Luke Derringer!' and he must have heard because he'd gone away without attempting to open the locked door.
But most of all she hated herself. How could she have been so despicably weak? For years she hadn't been troubled by physical lust—which was what she felt for Luke, she assured herself.
When a smooth, dark Spaniard with eyes like liquid coal had intoxicated her with his golden voice, his expert hands, she had been besotted enough to ignore the lessons learned from her mother's behaviour—that pathetic and constant pursuit of so-called love. But Willa had noted her daughter's blossoming, had soon discovered the reason for it, and
had taken Hernando from her with shaming ease.
Willa had had to prove herself irresistible, prove that no man would look at another woman while she was around. That the other woman had been her daughter, and that her young heart might have been broken, hadn't counted.
For weeks Annie had believed her heart was broken, but that had been excusable. She had been just seventeen.
But there was no excuse now, none at all. For seven years she had known better than to trust mere physical attraction, knowing that there had to be more, something much deeper, if a relationship were to last. And yet all it had taken had been a husky voice, a pair of deep blue eyes, a lean and powerful body, and there she'd been—on the point of begging him to make love to her!
His taking of Monk's Hall was as nothing to the way he had taken her pride, the respect of self she had so carefully built over the last seven years.
When at last she fell asleep she was out for the count, and only woke when a battering at her door had her opening bleary eyes to Jamie's yell of 'Wake up, Annie!'
And then Luke's deep tones, informing her that it was gone ten, set her insides lurching uncomfortably. Pulling on the robe which now had such shameful memories, she wondered how she was ever going to face Luke again after what had happened.
Gingerly, she unlocked her door and shot back the bolt. She had put up barriers where none had been needed. Luke would never have forced himself on her, no matter how aroused he had been. She had to respect him for that. For at that moment she respected him more than she respected herself, she decided uncomfortably. One word from her would have had him backing off. Just one word, and she hadn't been able to say it. Hadn't wanted to say it!
