AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her lips parted involuntarily and his tongue probed the soft, moist interior with an eroticism that aroused an answering passion in her she battled to control… and failed. His fingers found the pert pink tip of one breast and plucked gently, bringing it to a tight, hard nub of aching desire before stroking across to deliver the same exquisite pleasure to the other. And all the time his sensual mouth devoured hers in a kiss of ever-deepening desire.
His head lifted and a low moan escaped her. As though it was a signal Luke had been waiting for, he released her wrists and pulled her top over her head. Blinded for a moment, when Jemma opened her eyes it was to see Luke, minus his jacket, staring down at her body with intent, hungry eyes. Then his dark head dipped and he kissed her again, before placing kisses down her throat and then lower, his tongue teasingly circling a swollen nipple, slowly drawing the rigid tip between his teeth to suckle it.
Jemma's back arched in helpless response as a feverish excitement rocketed through her body. It had been too long since she had been in a man's arms—in this man's arms—since she had felt the exquisite pleasure of sexual arousal, and Luke had seduced her utterly. One small hand slipped beneath the open neck of his shirt to cling to his broad shoulder, the other curving around the nape of his neck, her fingers combing involuntarily through the silky black hair of his head and urging him closer to her aching breasts. Jemma's eyelids drifted down in helpless response to his expert touch and she gave herself up completely, to revel in the exquisite sensations consuming her whole body. She felt his hand on her belly and had no idea when he had unzipped her trousers. But she didn't care as his long fingers slipped beneath her lace panties to cup the mound of her sex.
Luke raised his head, his molten silver gaze burning over her near-naked body. She was everything he remembered and so much more, and his own hunger threatened to explode as he saw her beautiful face flushed with passion, her glorious eyes…closed…
Luke growled deep in his throat and reared back. 'Open your eyes, Jemma,' he demanded harshly. Her thick lashes lifted and she stared up at him, her golden gaze hazed with desire. With one long finger he outlined her pouting mouth. 'Now, say my name.'
'Luke,' she murmured breathlessly, and tried to push his shirt from his shoulders.
'And again,' he insisted, dipping his head to lave and then briefly nip the peak of first one breast and then the other before returning to take her mouth once more. He felt her body jerk up beneath him and he ached to be inside her, hard and fast and immediately… 'My name, Jemma,' he demanded yet again.
'Luke,' she groaned. 'Luke, don't stop…'
'Good. Very good,' he grated between suddenly clenched teeth, and with superhuman control he forced himself to grasp her shoulders and push her back against the sofa, to rise to his feet.
Jemma looked up at Luke with passion-dazed eyes and involuntarily lifted a hand towards him. She felt the cool air against her breasts, but it was as nothing to the coldness in the gaze that swept briefly over her reclining form.
'But stop we must, because although we have established that you say my name so eagerly, you will never mistake me for your husband or any other man again.'
Jemma shivered at the implacable tone in his voice. Something had gone wrong. Instinctively she edged up into a sitting position.
'And, beautiful and wanton though you are—' he reached out and brushed a few tendrils of hair from her brow '—I have no intention of making love to you in this shrine to your dead husband.' His silkily voiced comment acted like a bucket of iced water on Jemma's overheated senses. 'The next time we make love will be at a place and time of my choosing, Jemma.'
She stared up at his shuttered face, unwilling to believe what her mind was telling her was true. She recognised the gleam of cynical triumph in his steel-grey eyes, the dark desire in the enlarged black pupils, and turned her head away. He had deliberately made love to her for no other reason than as a sop to his monumental ego. How could she have been so dumb? Such a push-over?
Desire and disgust fought inside her. Her shattered gaze lighted on the picture of Alan on the sofa opposite, and somehow it gave her strength. She took a deep, shuddering breath, and then another. She wouldn't let Luke know how easily he could reduce her to the wanton he had called her; she wouldn't give him the satisfaction. Instead she would play him at his own game.
'Nice thought.' She forced a smile to her swollen lips and slid off the sofa. Picking up her top, she added, 'You're right. This isn't the place.' She pulled her top over her head and smoothed it over her breasts, taking her time to regain some semblance of control before glancing up at him. If she had not been so bitterly ashamed and angry she might have laughed at the expression of surprise on his face. He had obviously not expected her to agree with him. 'Thank you for reminding me and, speaking of time, it's time you left.'
Gathering every scrap of will-power she could muster, she sauntered towards the door and had stepped about three paces along the hall before Luke caught up with her. Taking her arm, he turned her around to face him, a querying light in his shrewd grey eyes.
'You're suddenly being very reasonable.'
'Why not?' Jemma casually shrugged her shoulders and brushed his hand from her arm, opening the front door. In seconds she had walked down the short garden path and stepped out onto the pavement, and turned to find he was right behind her. Bravely she looked him in the eye, though she was shaking inside with humiliation and rage. 'After all, you and I both know it's never going to happen.
Because you're incapable of making love,' she jeered softly.
'Incapable!' Luke repeated in amazement. 'Whatever gave you that idea? Don't tell me.' He answered his own question. 'It's your frustration talking, because I wouldn't make love to you just now.' Why did this woman feel the need to insult h
is sexual prowess when she knew perfectly well that she was putty in his arms any time he chose? He shook his head in exasperation. Jemma was the most infuriating female he had ever met. He really didn't need someone like her in his well-ordered life when he knew without conceit that he could take his pick from dozens of much more amenable women. And how the hell had she manoeuvred him out onto the pavement?
Jemma saw him stiffen in outrage and she didn't give a damn. It was way past time the arrogant devil heard a few home truths. 'No, it's not frustration talking, just the simple truth,' she stated bluntly. 'You don't make love—you have sex, and lots of it, with countless women, by all accounts. But I suppose, given your great wealth, that's to be expected. To give you your due, you do appear to know all the right buttons to press,' she declared with a humourless smile, and added, 'But you do lack a lot in the sensitivity stakes. And, since I have known real love, I'm never going to settle for anything less,' she concluded, not bothering to hide the utter contempt in her tone.
Luke wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her till her teeth rattled. He was enraged at the brutal dissection of his character—although a part of his anger was with himself, because he could not totally deny what Jemma had said. He drew in a deep, harsh breath, fighting to control his temper.
'You say that now, Jemma, but never is a very long time.' He smiled unpleasantly. 'And you may not have a choice.'
'One always has a choice,' Jemma asserted, and almost added And I would never choose you, but, glancing up at him, she saw the threat in his eyes, in the powerful body looming over her, and she held her tongue as a sliver of apprehension ran down her spine.
'True… But sometimes the choice is not between good and bad, right and wrong.' His grey eyes held hers, a calculating and sinister light in the glittering depths. 'Often it's between the lesser of two evils, as you will no doubt learn.'
Jemma watched Luke shrug on his jacket, and with a last contemptuous glance at her he spun on his heel and walked away. She saw him step into a racy black car parked a few metres along the pavement. He never looked back.
A long drawn out sigh escaped her. Luke had gone—thank God! She had got rid of the man at last, and she should have felt relieved. But instead, as she walked back into the house, all she could feel was a lingering sense of apprehension, and all she could see was his contemptuous expression as he'd left. And what had he meant by she might not have a choice!
Half an hour later, having tidied up the living room and made a cup of tea, Jemma sat down on the sofa and sipped the reviving brew. She looked around at all the familiar furnishings and photos, everything that made the room her sanctuary, but oddly it did not give her the same sense of comfort that it usually did. It was as though the alien presence of Luke Devetzi had upset the balance somehow.
