Luke made a sleepy sound that was part murmur, part groan and gathered her even closer, his face nuzzling into the side of her neck, the graze of his morning stubble making her skin shiver like a filly trying to shake off a fly.
Abby closed her eyes, feigning sleep, trying to get her breathing as rhythmic as his, which wasn’t easy given her heart was stuttering like an old tractor engine.
One of his legs came over the top of hers and he pulled her against his morning erection. Abby had never felt anything so erotic and exciting in her life. Her girly bits clapped their hands in glee and her breasts tingled from the soft prickle of his masculine hair where his strong forearm was resting just below them.
‘Mmm…’ Luke’s voice was a sexy hum against her neck that made her nerves fizz and flicker.
Abby was wondering how far she could push her luck when he suddenly jerked away from her with an expletive. ‘What the freaking hell?’
She turned over to see him staring at her in abject horror. So much for her self-esteem. Off to the corner with you to suck your thumb and rock.
‘What did I do?’ Luke asked in a tone she hadn’t heard him use before. It was strangled and hoarse as if he had swallowed a pineapple. ‘Did we—? Tell me we—I didn’t—’
‘Nothing happened, Luke,’ Abby said, letting out a frustrated sigh. ‘I think we just somehow gravitated together while we were sleeping.’
He threw off the covers and stood up by the side of the bed, his expression dark and frowning. ‘Why are you sleeping…naked in my bed?’ His stress over the word ‘naked’ was like a skewer through the balloon-thin skin of her self-esteem.
Abby pulled the bed sheet over her body and sat up. ‘I was worried about you. I didn’t want to leave you until I was certain you were asleep. But somehow I—’
‘Thought you’d whip off your clothes and jump into bed with me?’ His tone couldn’t have been more scathing than if he was reprimanding a rebellious teenager. ‘For God’s sake, Abby. I could have—’ He scraped his hair back off his forehead, his mouth snapping closed as if he couldn’t bear to say out loud what he could have done.
‘I was wearing a towel—a big one—but it must have slipped off.’ Abby glanced at the foot of the bed and saw a lump under the covers. ‘There it is. See? It must have got pushed down there when we—’
‘When we what?’ His voice cracked like an egg on concrete. ‘Damn it, Abby, I could have hurt you.’
‘You didn’t do anything I didn’t want,’ Abby said. ‘I liked being spooned. No one’s ever done that to me before. I liked the feel of your body behind mine. It was—’
‘Stop.’ He held his hand up as if he was stopping traffic. ‘Stop it right there. This is not happening.’
‘It is happening, Luke.’ She clutched the sheet around her breasts to keep it secure. ‘You want me.’
‘It’s a reflex,’ he said. ‘It happens to every man in the morning. It means nothing.’
Abby decided it was time to test a little theory of hers. She swung her legs off the bed and stood up and let the sheet slip so more than half of her breasts were showing. His eyes ran over her cleavage and the upper swell of her breasts, his throat bobbing up and down over a swallow.
‘I’ll just be going then.’ She moved past him to leave the room but his hand reached for her and came down on her forearm. She stopped and turned to face him, her arm buzzing with sensation where his fingers lay. ‘Am I really so unappealing to you?’
He frowned. ‘God, no. I want you but—’
‘Then why not have me?’ Abby moved closer. ‘I want you.’
His hand fell away from her arm. ‘You want more than I can give.’
‘I’m asking you to sleep with me, not marry me and have your babies. Why is having a fling with me so unthinkable to you?’
‘I don’t want what happens between us to get in the way of your relationship with my sister,’ he said. ‘Or for that matter for my relationship with her to be damaged.’
‘It won’t be,’ Abby said. ‘Ella knows you went to the ball with me. She’s probably seen the photos of us last night all over social media. She’ll be happy for you that you’ve moved on and she’ll be happy for me as long as I’m happy.’
‘And how long will your happiness last?’ he said. ‘I know how this works. The longer two people have sex together, especially if the sex is good, the harder it is to let go. Particularly for women.’ Something about his expression made Abby wonder if there was more to that last comment than there appeared at face value.