Passionate Retribution

'I want to watch you too,' she said suddenly.

Luke's laugh was a fierce, heady mixture of male satisfaction, triumph and tenderness. He rolled over and she welcomed the enveloping weight of his hard body. 'Shall I tell you what I intend to do to you, Emmy?' he murmured throatily, his teeth against her ear sending a series of sharp shivers through her. She looked at him with smoky golden eyes, which felt weighted by her eyelashes, and he took this as an affirmative.

The words should have shocked her virginal ears but she felt a wild, uncontrolled excitement as she listened to his warm, deep voice. The mutual caresses and kisses grew less measured, more frantic, as passions escalated like a violent, unstoppable chain reaction.

'Emmy, I can't take much more of this,' he rasped, his breath searingly hot against her neck. Gently but possessively the heel of his palm ground rhythmically into the soft mound of her pubic bone wherein centred the core of her agony.

'Just take me, then,' she pleaded. Did he hesitate? She almost screamed in frustration, then she saw the expression burning in his eyes and her body instinctively opened itself for him.

The intrusion of him was swift and fierce, but tempered. For a split-second her muscles tensed in protest at the sharp pain. 'Don't,' she cried out, wrapping her legs around him to prevent the swift withdrawal she sensed was imminent. 'I want this,' she said with a primitive ferocity, for an instant reversing the aggressive role. Then, as she gave herself up to the rhythm and let it flow through her, there were no roles—just a harmony of giving and taking. She wanted to sob with the enormity of the emotion that filled her, just as he filled her physically.

Just as she thought she'd die from the sheer pleasure of reaching for something tantalisingly out of reach, the demands of Luke's body altered subtly. She welcomed the new elemental, awesome power of him.

He was repeating her name, a hoarse mantra, in her ear. She sobbed out loud as the first deep contraction of pleasure shook her with a shocking ferocity. The cry ripped from Luke's throat mingled with her own voice until they lay inextricably linked in the afterglow of their lovemaking.

When Emily awoke the room was filled with a dusty sunlight that filtered through the curtains, illuminating the room. Memory returned in a sudden rush, not gently, gradually, and she turned to find a pair of blue eyes watching her as recall suspended the present. What was she supposed to say? How casual was she supposed to be? Deep inside, her instincts made her want to express the totality of the love that filled her, spilled out of her. It was there for a split-second before she carefully extinguished all outward expressions of incautious emotion.

For her, last night had been unique, a physical outlet of the love she felt for this man; but he didn't want what she had to offer. For him, it had been a casual if tempestuous encounter; there had been no twin in him of the well in her own breast that had been tapped in the dark hours, opening her mind and body to the ecstasy of fulfilling the destiny of her womanhood. She couldn't bear the humiliation of him knowing—seeing his scorn, watching the calculation as he assimilated this fresh ammunition in his quest to punish her father.

She had made the biggest mistake in her life, and yet she knew that if she found herself in the same place with the same man she'd not alter a thing. She didn't want to look at him, see triumph on his chiselled, sternly beautiful features. Would he lose any time in taking advantage of the situation he had created? She was a Stapely, the breed responsible for the death of his mother, the same family who had tried to subjugate his anarchic self-sufficiency. He had turned the tables on one of them.

There had to have been more to it than that. Rebellion spilled from some deep inner core. But she ruthlessly quelled the small voice of optimism. She couldn't allow herself to be bewitched by his skill as a lover, to endow it with anything deeper than it had been. To her, it had been an incredible revelation; she'd discovered depths within herself that she'd never dreamt were there to be awoken. She'd lost the arrogance that had made her assume she could ignore the basic female instincts, but she also knew that only one man would ever awake them—sublimation with some pale imitation would never now be possible.

'What time is it?' You couldn't get much more pragmatic than that, she thought wryly. Disobedient to her control, a portion of her mind was sketching the way her body could fit so perfectly with Luke's long- limbed, hardly muscled frame. The image was intensely satisfying, warm and complacent.

'Emily, throw off the shackles of civilisation just for a few moments. Does it actually matter what time it is?' he asked her, his voice dry. As he raised himself on one elbow the blanket slid down to his waist, and she felt her face colour.