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“I can tell you’ve grown used to pushing people around.”
“Damn it.”
“You know, I almost feel sorry for you. Nine years haven’t taught you anything. Oh, sure, you’re richer and colder, which means a lot of people probably think you’re pretty successful. But I’ll bet you’re not nearly as happy and as satisfied with your life as you try to pretend, or you wouldn’t be trying to bully me. You’re living a lie, Logan Claiborne, and I’m one of the few people who knows it. That’s why you want me to leave. You don’t want to face the truth about who you really are and what you really feel. You’re no elegant, refined gentleman. You use your money like a shield to fend off anything that’s real…like me.”
“Rip up that paper. Do the smart thing for once. Just say you’ll take my money.”
“Or you’ll what?” When she licked her mouth, making her lower lip shine wetly, something that had been wound too tight for nine damn years snapped inside him, unleashing a force he would have denied with every breath in his body.
With a suddenness that startled them both, him most of all, he seized her slim shoulders. Jerking her to her feet, his hard arms circled hers, and then crushed her against him. “You shouldn’t have come back here. You shouldn’t have messed with me again.”
“So, you do want me, a little,” she whispered, her musical voice a husky taunt against his throat. “Is that why you’re so afraid of me?”
“I’m not afraid. You have to go,” he muttered furiously, too aware of her soft breasts mashed against his chest. “You know it. And I know it.”
“Do I?” She paused. “Well, now I’m going to tell you something. I don’t know it. You and I haven’t been on the same page in ever so long, Mr. Claiborne. Lucky me.”
“Damn you.”
“I want to stay and I will—until I’m good and ready to go. And I will go, but only when I decide.”
“If you’re smart…”
“I’ll what? I’ll leave before I tempt you into my bed again?” She laughed.
A faint breeze swept the wide veranda, stirring gold tendrils against her temple. She was so damn sexy, and her body felt so warm, he lost his train of thought. How could he think with her in his arms? With her voluptuous breasts pressed against his chest? With her hair smelling sweetly of shampoo and her body of jasmine scented soap? With her half-open lips too close to his to resist? With her saying things to deliberately tempt him?
Yes, she was right. He wanted her naked and writhing and wet underneath him again.
On that thought his mouth came down on hers. If only she hadn’t clung, maybe sanity would have returned. But she did, pressing herself against him, shuddering as violently as he did, causing him to gasp and kiss her again and then again. And with every kiss, his long-repressed hunger grew until it was a thunderous, pulsing fever. When she purred, melted and opened her delicious mouth wider so that his tongue could fill it, the world began to reel past him in a dizzying rush.
He had no idea how long he held her and devoured her mouth, or how he summoned the strength to finally push her away before it was too late to stop.
Panting hard, he stared down at her. He’d been seconds away from carrying her to the garçonnière where he would have taken her wildly and violently, not tenderly as he had on their first night. And once would never be enough. He felt as obsessed by her now as he had in the past.
As his guilty eyes held hers, he saw that she was burning up just like he was. Her cheeks were red, her mouth swollen, her eyes aflame, her tumult more than equal to his.
“I still hate you,” she said, breathing so hard and fast, those beautiful breasts of hers were heaving, tempting him to new indiscretions.
“I hate you even more than Jake does. I hate you for what you did in the past. For who you were back then. But most of all, I hate you for who you still are. And for what you just did. You take, but you don’t give.”
Then why was she running her tongue over her lips as if to taste him again?
“Good,” he whispered, loathing himself even more than she and Jake ever could. “Concentrate on that, then, and maybe we’ll get through this without tearing up our lives again.”
“And I thought I was the only one who suffered,” she whispered. “Was I wrong?”
Never in a thousand years would he admit that he’d suffered because of losing her, that he’d caused Noelle to suffer, and yet… The truth was that after he’d jilted Cici and had willed his overpowering attraction for her to die, so that he could marry Noelle and make her happy, his determination had failed him. Back then he’d thought if a man had enough willpower, he could make himself do anything. He’d believed he could create the life of his grandfather’s dreams through sheer force of will. But instead his obsession with her had dominated him.
