Her face contorted with anguish again. Oh, she was here on a beautiful, sun-kissed Caribbean island, all right—but not with Luke. Or at least not with the man she had thought he was. She was here with a hard-faced, cruel-voiced stranger who only found fault with her. A petty tyrant like her father, carping and dismissive.
Not Luke. It wasn’t Luke at all.
That man I knew so briefly, so wonderfully, is gone. Gone and never coming back. Or perhaps that was never the man he truly is in the first place. Perhaps this Luke is the real him.
A sob broke from her, but she stifled it, filled with the misery that had possessed her ever since she had realised that he was the man who had brought her father to ruin and then helped himself to the remnants of his business.
In any case, he was supremely indifferent to her now.
It’s as though he hates me!
Emotion blasted her once more.
And I hate him. I hate him for the way he is now. I hate him for his indifference, for his coldness, his anger, for his cruelty.
There was a sudden noise behind her. Her bedroom door was flung open and she saw the reason for her devastation reflected in the dressing table mirror.
She whirled around. ‘Get out!’
She yelled it with all her strength but Luke did not obey. He strode up to her, dark purpose in his face.
With a smothered gasp of shock Talia lurched to her feet—and then he was in front of her. His eyes blazed with dark light while his hands reached for her, clamping a
round her upper arms. Heat burned through the thin silk of her sleeve. She reeled with the sensation of it—with his closeness. She could catch the scent of his aftershave, the scent of his body. Her senses were fully awake now, memories buffeting her like the wind on a tiny sailboat in the middle of a stormy sea.
She could not bear it. Could not endure it.
She yelled at him again. Her heart had started to pound, blood was surging in her veins. ‘Let go of me! You’ve got no right! No right to barge in here and manhandle me! So get out—get out!’
There was fury in her voice. And desperation. How could he stride in here, looking the way he did? Tall, dark, and so, so dangerous.
He did not let her go. His face twisted, that dark light still blazing in his eyes, and it made her reel with the force of it. She felt faint at the intensity, and suddenly weak with what she dared not face.
She felt herself sway, and only the grip of his steel hands around her arms stayed her.
‘Throw me out if you want...’ The hoarseness in his voice made it low, like a growl, and it was filled with the same burning intensity that was in his eyes, pouring into hers. ‘But not yet. Not yet.’
For one endless moment more his dark gaze burned into hers. And then he hauled her to him, his mouth swooping to hers.
The room disappeared. The world disappeared. Everything disappeared. She drowned in his kiss. It was unbearable to kiss him and unthinkable not to. Her hands flashed to his shoulders, grasping them tightly. Then, as suddenly as he had seized her, he relinquished her. He stepped back and gave a harsh, brief laugh that had no humour in it.
His eyes were still blazing down at her. She stared at him, breathless, heart pounding, mouth stung and pouting, stared at the naked passion in his kiss, lips parting helplessly, eyes aching.
‘Do you see now why I’ve been so cruel to you? I’ve been trying to hold you at bay. I had to push you away...’ The hoarseness was still in his voice. ‘Because it was the only way—the only way to stop myself kissing you like that. It was my only protection.’
His hands fell away from her and she swayed in their absence. Blood was pounding in her ears and racing in her veins. She was dazed.
He gave that harsh, humourless laugh again. ‘Tell me to go.’ His voice had changed; his stance had changed. The darkness in his eyes had changed. ‘Or tell me to stay...’
She could not move, could not speak. She could only stand there, knowing with a kind of fatal awareness that desire had leapt in her body as a kindled flame. That she could feel her breasts filling, peaking, heat flushing up inside her. They were all but declaring her answer to him.
His expression had changed, too, and what was in it now made Talia feel faint again, weak. She could not drag her eyes from him, could not move. She heard him speak again through the blood soaring in her veins.
‘You see...’ he said softly, and a taunt was there in his voice. But it was not directed at her, she knew, but at himself. ‘You see how much protection from you I need.’
He reached a hand towards her as she stood there, so faint, so motionless. He drew one long finger down the length of her cheek, then let it fall away. It was the same casual gesture he had made when he had first touched her on that fateful evening.
She saw his eyes half close, long lashes dipping. She saw the planes of his face, the roughened edge of his jaw, the strong column of his throat, the sable feathering of his hair. She caught again his scent in her nostrils and felt weakness drain through her. This was insanity...madness. It could only be that, surely, after all that had passed between them? To let this happen all over again?