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‘What is it you’re looking for, Ronan?’ she asked acidly. ‘Someone else whose life you can turn upside down?’
Her tart comment was greeted by a slow, assessing look that aggravated the already uneasy churning in the pit of her stomach.
‘Davey did that all by himself, Lily,’ Ronan told her with silky indifference. ‘He didn’t need my help in any way.’
‘But he’s still the one who’s paying for it.’
Even though Ronan was only coming towards her to put his own plate and cup in the dishwasher, it still took all her self-control to hold her ground. Close up like this, he seemed to tower over her five foot six frame, dangerously strong and imposing.
‘Do you know what you’re doing to my brother? Really know, I mean? He doesn’t eat, he doesn’t sleep, and if he dozes off for a minute he has nightmares. I’ve heard him call out…’
The words caught up in her throat as Ronan lifted broad shoulders in a shrug of supreme indifference.
‘Tell me about it,’ he drawled sardonically. ‘I know all about sleepless nights. Excuse me!’
Alarmed by the pointed edge to the last comment, Lily practically jumped out of his way, her eyes unwillingly drawn to the firm lines of his body as he bent to place his crockery in the machine.
The sunlight slanting through the window gilded his glorious hair, picking out the gleam of copper threaded through its darkness. It was longer now than the uncompromising crop of their wedding day, and her fingers itched to slide through it, tangling sensuously in the gleaming softness at the nape of his neck. From there they could move down to the straight, square shoulders, along the length of his spine and lower…
‘What do you think?’
The question jolted her sharply out of her enticing daydream, jerking her head round until golden eyes met steely blue ones. She could only blink in confusion as she realised that Ronan now expected an answer to a question she hadn’t even heard.
‘Possibly,’ she hedged, painfully embarrassed to find that her heated thoughts seemed to have dried her throat so that the word croaked huskily.
‘I’ll pick you up after work, then. The club doesn’t close until—’
‘Hang on a minute!’ Lily shook her head to clear her thoughts of the last clinging cobwebs of voluptuous indulgence that still lingered. ‘What club?’
Ronan’s sigh was a masterpiece of resigned patience.
‘In Leeds,’ he enunciated slowly and carefully, as if speaking to a slow-witted child. ‘The one I’m going to tonight. The one you’ve agreed to go to with me.’
‘I’ve done no such thing!’
Too late she realised that this had been the question she hadn’t heard. Ronan had taken her abstracted murmur as agreement to his proposal that she accompany him.
‘I don’t know what makes you think I’d want to go anywhere with you. I’d rather die!’
The little shudder of repugnance she gave was the last straw as far as Ronan was concerned. For the past week he had fought to control the force of his physical feelings for Lily, with all the success of someone trying vainly to put a lid on a volcano that was about to erupt. He might as well try to hold back the flowing tide of red-hot lava with a child’s fishing net.
After several long, sleepless nights, and even longer days, trying to ignore the violent way his body reacted to just the sight of her, the scent of her skin, the sound of her voice, what little patience he had was stretched to breaking point. He wanted her so much that it hurt even to think about it, and he no longer cared about the possible consequences if he gave in to that need.
And Lily herself was no help. After that blunt declaration about the way she felt about him, she seemed to have retreated into her shell like some small hermit crab. But time and time again he had caught her looking at him when she didn’t think she was observed, and because he felt the same way he had instantly recognised the hunger in her eyes for what it was.
There was no way they could deny their passion for each other. It played around them like forked lightning in an electrical storm, striking sparks in the air and building up an atmosphere that grew more and more oppressive with each second they spent in each other’s company.
And he for one had had enough. Something had to happen to ease the tension between them or the resulting explosion would have the force of a nuclear bomb. Except that this time the resulting devastation would be emotional rather than physical.
‘Fine.’
His immediate, unconcerned acceptance of her refusal, the way he simply ignored her snappish indignation was just too much for Lily. Perversely they had the exact opposite effect to what she had expected, making her pause briefly and reconsider, even allowing a faint thread of regret to slide into her thoughts.
‘I’ll go on my own.’
‘And what if Davey comes back?’
What was she doing? Reminding him of why he was here would only make him change his mind, abandon the trip to Leeds and return to his post as watchdog, waiting for her brother to reappear.
But to her surprise Ronan appeared untroubled by the thought.
‘I’ll take a chance on that. After all, Gerry is still on his trail, and your damn brother isn’t the only reason I’m up here.’
‘No, you hope to make even more money by getting your claws into other victims who can’t see through you.’ She flung the words with scathing force into his dark, controlled face.
‘That as well,’ Ronan confirmed carelessly. ‘But there are more personal reasons. We are still man and wife,’ he elucidated as she stared in blank incomprehension.
‘And we both know that means nothing at all!’
A slow, dangerous smile curled Ronan’s sensual mouth in response to her furious outburst. It was positively fiendish, almost sensuous in its predatory anticipation, and he took a slow, deliberate step closer, making Lily stiffen in instinctive rejection.
‘Perhaps,’ he murmured smoothly, his caressing tone making her toes curl in uncontrollable response inside her elegant high-heeled shoes. ‘But it is legal, my darling Lily. All above board, signed and sealed, and…’
That purring voice dropped an octave, became positively sinful in its carnal enjoyment.
‘Very definitely consummated. You’re my wife; you bear my name.’
‘A convenience, nothing more! I had already arranged to have everything changed before our parody of a marriage, and I really couldn’t be bothered changing it back again.’
The uneven breathlessness of her voice destroyed the image of indifference she was aiming for, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Her heart had already leapt into overdrive, sending hot pulses of awareness through her body. Simply by moving close to her he could spark off this unwanted reaction in every cell, and there was no way she could hide it.
‘A convenience,’ Ronan echoed softly. ‘Certainly it is very convenient…’
He used the low, smoky voice to weave a lingering spell around her senses, enticing each one awake to the sight, the sound, the arousing, intensely personal scent of his strong body. He was so very close now that she felt that if she let herself lick her parched lips she would actually taste him on them, relishing the salty tang of his skin as she had done in their most intimate moments of lovemaking.
‘Because now we can take up from where we left off.’
‘Never!’
The rejection tangled in her throat, almost choking her as his hand brushed her cheek very gently. Slow, sensuous fingers slid along the delicate line of her jaw, down the slender column of her throat, insinuating themselves into the lace-edged neck of her blouse.
‘I—don’t want…’
‘Liar,’ he reproved softly, those exploring fingers moving deeper under the white silk, his arrogant assumption that they had a perfect right to do so making her tremble as she struggled with an inner conflict that threatened to tear her mind in two.
She wanted this! Wanted it with a need that made her ache with heated excitement. Physically she was burning up with a hunger that had been building since that first devastating experience of his lovemaking on their wedding night.
At some point during those long, glorious, passion-filled hours, Ronan had discovered the door to the deep well of sensuality that lay at the core of her being, undiscovered until then, but now impossible to conceal ever again. He had unlocked that door that night, and when he left he had taken the key with him so that she could never hope to close it against him even if she tried. The hunger and the need that he had awoken in her then could only ever be truly appeased by one man—this man.
‘I don’t…’ she tried again, even less convincingly this time.
And Ronan knew it. That predatory smile surfaced again and his other hand tangled in her hair, destroying the sleek style as the pins she had used to fasten it were pulled loose and tossed to the floor. Tugging softly on the golden strands that coiled around his long fingers, he pulled her head back until her stormy amber gaze met his coolly appraising stare.
‘I don’t believe you, my darling.’ His total calm, his lofty assurance were fiendish in their complete lack of emotion.
‘What there was between us that night was like a bushfire raging wildly out of control. It could never be extinguished by anything as trifling and insignificant as rational thought. It’s all still there, bubbling just under the surface, needing nothing more than a touch…a kiss…’
