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Turning the spray on fully, she was too busily engrossed in lathering herself to hear the soft footfall on the tile floor, and it was only the closing of the bathroom door that alerted her to the fact that she was no longer alone. She looked up and saw Luke leaning against the closed door, arms folded across his bare chest, a brief towelling robe belted loosely round his waist.
‘Trying to wash away the taint of my touch?’ he jeered unpleasantly. ‘It won’t work. They say that the memory of her first lover is something a woman carries with her all her life.’
‘I just wanted a shower.’ Her towel was lying on the floor out of reach, and she wished desperately that she had the courage to reach for the shower curtain and pull it between them. Luke was studying her body with something closely akin to clinical detachment, and it didn’t help remembering how he had touched it the previous night. To her shame and horror Genista felt her breasts swell slightly as though aroused by his glance.
‘So that you could feel “clean” again before you left me? That’s what you were planning, wasn’t it? We’re staying together, Genista. I’ve already told you, no one makes a fool of me twice. I won’t have people saying that my wife walked out on me after one night of wedded bliss. If you leave me, I’ll tell Elaine you and Bob were having an affair. Oh, I know it’s not true, but she obviously doesn’t, otherwise you would never have agreed to marry me in the first place. I don’t know why you’re so anxious to protect his marriage, but if the fear of destroying it is what it takes to keep you at my side, then destroy it I will, if you ever try to leave.’
‘But we can’t live together!’ Genista was aghast. He might as well condemn them both to a life senteance in prison.
‘Why not? Because I took your virginity? Because I “hurt” you? If that’s what’s bothering you—and I suspect it is, perhaps now’s a good time to show you that there doesn’t have to be pain.’
He had removed his robe before Genista could gather her scattered wits. The foaming gel she had been lathering into her skin adhered to him as he reached for her, but instead of lifting her out of the shower, he began a slow caressing movement over her back, stroking the tense muscles, until they began to relax against her will. His fingers rested lightly against her waist for a moment, before descending further to explore the narrow curves of her hips. The nerves in her stomach quivered pro-testingly, wanting to deny the power of those arousing hands, but already the weak, melting sensation she remembered from last night was spreading upwards from her thighs. Luke’s fingers against the sensitive chord of her spine making her shiver with mingled pleasure and fear.
‘I see you’re one of those old-fashioned girls who doesn’t believe in sunbathing in the nude? Last night I thought it was merely another carefully designed ploy to arouse and tease—all men enjoy the thrill of thinking they’re the first, whether it’s seeing or touching—and I got both, didn’t I?’
She wanted to deny it, but his lips were tracing butterfly-light kisses along her throat, his thumb stroking the acutely sensitive skin behind her small ear. She was trembling as though gripped by some tropical fever, her eyes drawn irresistibly to the tanned flesh of Luke’s body, which proclaimed all too obviously that he did not believe in undue modesty when it came to a suntan.
‘I know you want to touch me.’ The calm words panicked her, then Luke’s hand cupped her chin. ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s only natural to want to give pleasure as well as to receive it. Your skin tastes of peaches.’ He bit her flesh delicately, his hands sliding down to her waist to hold her against him. She lifted a hand to push him away, but it was wet and slipperly from the gel and slid impotently over his skin. The impact of his muscled body beneath her palm triggered off the same desire she had experienced earlier that morning to discover more about him.
‘Genista?’
She looked upwards. Luke’s fingers tangled in her hair, holding the base of her skull so that his lips were given licence to plunder the vulnerable line of hers. Only this time there was no force in the kisses, only a tormentingly teasing provocation that promised and withheld, until she had forgotton that this was a man whom she professed to hate and wanted only to prolong the briefly tantalising pressure of his kiss until it hardened and demanded the way it had done last night. Her small moan of frustration as once again his lips were withdrawn after the briefest of caresses impelled her to reach upwards, clasping her fingers behind Luke’s neck, her body pressed against him so that the next time his mouth touched hers she could prevent him from depriving her of its contact. His shoulders felt sleekly smooth beneath her questing fingers, and when this time his kiss fulfilled its earlier promise, probing and tasting all the inner sweetness of her mouth, her hands moved urgently against his skin, exploring, and learning every tautly male contour, until her roaming fingers were captured and held against his chest, rasped by the thick curling body hair darkening the tanned flesh.
‘You’re learning, but I came in here to take a shower, not make love.’ He reached behind her for the soap and she was filled by the most ridiculous sense of deprivation. What was the matter with her? she chided herself. She ought to be feeling relieved, not…not…She struggled for a moment, but then her innate sense of honesty surfaced and she was forced to admit the truth—she was disappointed; bitterly disappointed because Luke did not want to continue making love to her!
She moved away blindly, and heard him laugh softly above her. ‘Where do you think you’re going? I told you last night we’d take a shower together, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘But you’re going to anyway.’
He was already soaping himself, and she followed the action mindlessly, her tongue wetting suddenly dry lips as she watched the sleek play of his muscles beneath his skin.
‘Now you try.’ Her hands were suddenly caught and placed against his body, his eyes mocking her shocked expression as he said softly, ‘You were managing okay when I walked in here. If it helps just close your eyes a
nd try to remind yourself I’m still a human being, even if I am a slightly different shape.’
Slightly! Genista told herself that it was fastidious disgust that coiled through her as she massaged soap reluctantly against his skin, but when his own hands brought a shuddering response from her own body as they stroked and caressed with a surety that spoke of long experience she could deny the truth no longer. Each caress was punctuated with a kiss, each kiss gradually deepening in intensity until she herself was pressing feverish kisses against Luke’s throat and shoulders. Not even the fine spray of the shower rinsing away the soap broke the spell Luke’s touch had aroused. When he carried her to the bed, she felt only an aching need for him to prolong his lovemaking. All her inhibitions seemed to have vanished. She responded feverishly to the touch of his hands and lips, moaning softly as his hands cupped her breasts, swollen with desire. The pain of the previous night was forgotton.
‘Say it, Genista,’ Luke demanded harshly, when the convulsive arching of her body beneath him betrayed her growing need. ‘Tell me you want me.’
‘I want you.’
She gasped a little at the fierceness of his kiss and then responded to it, losing herself in the sensations building up inside her in intensity until she was matching him step for step, his possession a welcome relief after the aching emptiness she had been experiencing.
This time there was no pain, only a gradual build-up to pleasure so prolonged that Luke’s name had become a mindless refrain on her tongue smothered by the hard pressure of his mouth as they clung together in mutual abandonment.
‘Don’t ever try to tell me we’re not sexually compatible at least,’ Luke said roughly when it was over. ‘You might love Bob, but I’m the one who can arouse you to the point where nothing matters other than that I possess you completely.’
It was several seconds before Genista realised that Luke thought she loved Bob. It was on the tip of her tongue to correct him when some sixth sense warned her not to. What she felt for him was only desire, of course; how could it be anything else, and yet deep down inside her she knew that she could never have responded so abandonedly to any man she did not love. Love? For Luke? But that was ridiculous. Was it? a small voice questioned. Wasn’t it possible that all her initial aggression and fear of him had been sparked off by a primitive need for self-preservation? Hadn’t she known instinctively then that in some way he threatened her peace of mind; represented the sort of danger she had promised herself she had left behind with Richard?
But she couldn’t love Luke. Why not? that same small voice asked calmly.
It couldn’t possibly be true. She refused to believe it. It was sexual desire, that was all. She closed her eyes, letting sleep wash over her. She dreamed of Luke and awoke with damp eyes to find him sitting in a chair by the window reading a paper.
‘Do you often cry in your sleep?’
‘I don’t know.’ He looked so savagely angry that she felt frightened. The fact that he was dressed while she lay naked beneath the protective sheets made her feel at a disadvantage.
