He continued to suckle her breast as his hand moved to the tie on her pyjama bottoms, deftly releasing the bow to let them fall to the floor so that he might touch the flesh beneath, seeking, caressing, gently cupping her there. He was able to feel her fiery heat, her dampness, her legs parting as she completely opened herself to him.
Her hands moved up to grasp his shoulders as he made his claim on her heat, stroking those soft, moist lips so that she arched against him.
She was on fire with need, Darci acknowledged, as she moved to allow Luc greater access between her legs. Her neck arched, thrusting her breast into his mouth as he entered her with first one finger and then two. His thumb sought out the hard nub above and he stroked her to a sobbing release that caught her and carried her over the edge of an abyss, as wave after wave of heat and sensation made her body pulse and contract in pure pleasure.
That sobbing release turned to genuine distress as reality hit her like a tidal wave. As she realised in whose arms she was, whose caressing hands had been on and in her body only seconds ago.
Her lids were heavy as she raised them to look up at Luc Gambrelli. The dark glitter of his eyes and the flush to his cheeks told of his own arousal.
An unfulfilled arousal.
Darci pulled away from him to hold the two sides of the pyjama top across her breasts and thighs, her legs still shaking from the force of her release.
‘Are you okay?’ Luc prompted huskily, as he saw her inner struggle to accept what had just happened between them.
He hadn’t meant for things to go quite as far as they had—had meant only to demonstrate to Darci how futile it was for her to try to avoid being with him the way she had earlier this evening.
Instead of just doing that he had become carried away—with Darci’s arousal, as well as his own. Unable to resist touching her, caressing her, unable to resist being inside her as her body exploded and convulsed in release.
A surrender that had only made her distrust of him deepen, if the fury snapping in her eyes and the look of self-disgust on her face were anything to go by!
He drew in a controlling breath as he fought down the clamouring of his own body. ‘What just happened was inevitable, Darci—’
‘Maybe to you it was,’ she returned scathingly, as she quickly rebuttoned her top. ‘But not to me!’
If Darci sought to return some semblance of propriety to this conversation by covering herself, then she was achieving the opposite, Luc acknowledged ruefully, noting that Darci’s long legs were still enticingly naked beneath the thigh-length garment.
‘What do you do in circumstances like this, Luc?’ she challenged him. ‘Give yourself half a notch on the bedpost rather than one?’
He looked at her darkly. ‘I don’t think insulting me is going to help this situation—’
‘You think that was insulting?’ she came back shrilly. ‘Let me assure you, Luc, where you’re concerned, I haven’t even begun!’
‘No one forced you into responding, dammit!’ Luc lost his temper, the ache in his own arousal—his unfulfilled arousal!—still throbbing painfully.
‘Oh, I might have known you would throw that in my face!’ Darci came back furiously. ‘But what chance did I have of refusing when the great lover, the practised seducer Luc Gambrelli, decided to turn all his considerable expertise onto me!’
‘I would advise you to stop right there, Darci,’ Luc bit out forcefully, a nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw, his eyes blazing with his own leashed temper.
‘Why should I?’ Darci defied him. ‘You just had to prove that you can have any woman you please, didn’t you? Couldn’t accept that there might be any woman in the universe who isn’t impressed by the legendary Luc Gambrelli—’
‘I told you to stop, Darci!’ he warned between gritted teeth.
‘And you expect me to obey, too, don’t you?’ she rejoined. ‘Well, welcome to the real world, Luc—you’re the last man, the very last man, I would ever obey—either now or in the future!’
Luc stilled at her vehemence, his gaze narrowing on her searchingly as he tried to make sense of everything that had happened since he’d first met her.