Staring up at him, she was aware of a heaviness in her eyelids, an urgent desire to melt quietly into the golden grip of lassitude that swept over her like ripples on a still lake, growing in urgency. 'Next you'll be telling me you're a romantic,' she retorted, fighting the drowning sensation. She could see her own features exaggerated like a caricature in his eyes—strangely hypnotic eyes.
Luke's eyes were travelling over her face with an almost reluctant intensity, as if he was submitting to a need he rejected and resented. His gaze rested on a spot on her throat where a pulse visibly beat with erratic force.
'Don't!' The panic-stricken word emerged strangled from between her trembling lips. She didn't know what was happening to her; she felt powerless to combat the drowning sensation. She felt intensely conscious of her own body, of the way her pulse was racing, the tenderness in her breasts as they brushed against her shirt, the growing ache low in her belly and a vague, mingled confusion of fear and impatience.
A growl was torn from his throat before his mouth covered hers. The movement was hard, hungry; she absorbed the impression of warmth, fragrant moisture, a sensation of overwhelming intimacy that made her body grow soft and pliant, her senses tuned to the tumultuous response that was building up within her.
With a sudden cry, lost in his mouth, her arms went around his waist; unable to meet across the expanse of his back, her fingers dug into the hardly muscled expanse as, with a series of small whimpers, she plastered herself against him.
Being removed physically from him was such a shock that it was several seconds before the sense of intense deprivation would permit her chest to expand sufficiently to breathe. Humiliation didn't take long to supplant the insidious hunger that had conspired to sweep away her better judgement. She was overwhelmed by the appalling weakness that had made her a willing—no, eager—participant.
She had thought she could handle this awareness, an awareness of the aggressive sensuality that Luke simply oozed and her own reluctant acknowledgement that she was responding to it at any number of inappropriate moments. But this! She inwardly cringed at the eager way she had co-operated with the somewhat brutal onslaught. He hadn't even tried to seduce her tenderly, she realised, and it had been he who had halted the escalation; that was the crowning humiliation.
Her chest rising with the exertion of combating the sensations that were quietly dragging her apart, she met his eyes, and stared at the person she held directly responsible for the violation of her will.
'I believe you mentioned something about sex,' he drawled slowly as she chewed her lower lip, her expression defiant but apprehensive, the flesh along her high cheekbones still tinged with a delicate colour all the more apparent because of the pallor of the rest of her face. 'Not a very refined performance, but I believe you got the drift.'
The cool, analytical expression on his face made something deep inside her rebel. How could she have revealed so much of herself when so little had been offered? she wondered despairingly. It was becoming clearer by the second. It had been a major error of judgement being here when, short of sprouting wings, she had to endure Luke's company. Not that she had had much say in the matter!
'Why did you do that?' she asked, her voice accusing, trembling.
He shrugged. 'You wanted me to,' he announced casually, and his lips thinned in an expression of almost bored scorn as she swelled with angry denial. 'You don't imagine I'd actually choose to kiss your father's daughter, do you?' he asked disparagingly, pushing the chair beside him with a jerky, violent movement that made it crash to the floor with a noise they both ignored. 'You always were an insidious little thing,' he said, speaking oddly, the words swift and angry. 'Big eyes that managed to look as though I'd inflicted some mortal wound. Those eyes managed to make a person forget you were the little girl who had everything, including an in-built sense of superiority, a deep conviction that everything would fall into your lap without you raising a finger. If it didn't, Daddy would fix it. Is that why it hurt so much to find out Gavin had been cheating, Em? Couldn't you believe anyone would dare not to fit in with your scheme?'
A faint frown marred her brow as she glared at him. The rush of angry contempt was bewilderingly swift. She didn't even bother formulating a defence; her childhood had been less than blissful, and if she had felt some odd affinity with Luke it had probably been because he was the only person who had ever treated her as though she wasn't some human equivalent of fast food—to provide instant gratification on the occasions a little girl was meant to be displayed, and ignored in the interim.
Something didn't quite add up. For a moment there he had seemed just as eager a participant as she had… the next he was behaving as though she made his skin crawl. Could men fake things so completely? she wondered miserably, flushing as she recalled the hard arousal of his body pressed against her own. 'If you touch me again I'll…I'll make you sorry,' she flung at him hotly.