Exquisite Revenge

‘If I’d known you were going to skinny-dip I would have waited to join you.’

The recent image of him fully naked and so potently masculine made Jesse’s anger surge all over again. She crossed one hand over her breasts and held out the other, making sure to stay under water, where her body would be distorted enough not to give him a clear view. At least it was dusky now, which would also hide a multitude.

Luc straightened up then, to go and stand by the steps which led out of the shallow end of the pool. He held out the robe just over the water. To get to it Jesse would have to walk up a few steps stark naked. She fumed and cursed silently. This was all her own fault. If she hadn’t acted like a teenager after seeing him naked she’d be perfectly decent in a one-piece swimsuit.

‘It’s only fair, Jesse,’ he cajoled softly. ‘After all, you saw me naked.’

She spluttered indignantly. ‘Only because you left your doors open so I couldn’t fail to notice you.’

He shook his head and chuckled softly—and that did all sorts of things to Jesse’s equilibrium. ‘Do you really think I went to all that trouble just in case you walked past at that exact moment?’

Jesse flushed even as goosebumps popped up on her exposed skin. No, she could very well imagine him nonchalantly shedding his towel and stepping into the steaming shower, not caring who saw him.

‘Come on,’ he said more briskly. ‘You’re goi

ng to freeze.’

Jesse’s teeth were already starting to chatter; it was cool in the evenings here, with hot summer still a few months away. Gritting her jaw, and feeling more exposed than she’d ever been in her life, Jesse stepped forward and then up the steps out of the pool. She grabbed the robe out of Luc’s hands.

She put it on awkwardly, and as every nano-second passed with torturous slowness was aware of his eyes on her bare skin. She could have wept when one arm of the robe proved to be stubbornly impossible to find, and stilled when Luc came forward and found it, helping to thread her arm through.

He came in front of her then and pulled the lapels of the robe together, covering her. Jesse belted it firmly, feeling the awful onset of weak tears again. She couldn’t curse Luc any more than she already had. She felt a finger tipping up her chin and gritted her jaw against his hand, her eyes flashing brilliantly in the gloaming light.

Luc was speechless for a long moment. Seeing Jesse emerge from the pool just now … he’d never witnessed such delicately feminine perfection. She was small-boned and tiny-waisted. But her hips flared out from her waist in such a way as to make him ache to put his hands there and mould their shape to his. The small tangle of strawberry-blonde curls covering her sex had made his mouth go dry.

Her breasts were fuller than he’d thought, and firm, with small nipples, tight and hard from the water and pink against her pale skin.

She was looking up at him now, eyes huge in her heart-shaped face, hair slicked back. No make-up. A wealth of emotion brimmed in those grey pools, and Luc was falling into a place he’d never been before.

The words came out of his mouth before he realised he’d even registered them. ‘You’re beautiful.’

He knew then that he’d said them many times before to other women but never really meant them as he did now.

For a second Jesse couldn’t respond. She was in thrall. To this moment and this man, and the way he’d pulled her robe closed with a kind of proprietorial gentleness, and then the way he’d said You’re beautiful.

A bird called loudly nearby and the spell was abruptly broken. Humiliation washed over Jesse. He was doing it again—mocking her. The man deserved an Oscar for his performace.

She pulled away and stepped back. ‘Stay out of my face, Sanchis.’

And with that she turned and walked back up to the villa, stopping herself from breaking into a run.

Luc watched her small form, the flash of bare pale legs in the gloom. She stopped by Tigger’s box inside the kitchen door and his own hands clenched into fists at his sides when he imagined those small hands running over the kitten. He wanted those hands running over him. All over his body and particularly where he ached most.

Luc set off back to the villa once he knew Jesse would be in her room. He didn’t doubt he wouldn’t see her again this evening. She was as skittish as a foal. He wondered what had made her like that. She had to be at least twenty-five, if not older …

Forget about torturing her, he thought grimly. The only person he seemed to be torturing was himself. She’d been lucky she’d caught him coming out of his shower earlier, or else she’d have seen the full extent of how easily she turned him on …

Through the tangled haze of frustration in Luc’s brain he had to face the uncomfortable realisation that no other woman had made him feel this hot. Not even Maria, and she had consumed him day and night for weeks.

Even though he could acknowledge now that his youth and inexperience had had a lot to do with how easily she’d seduced him, it didn’t take away the burn of humiliation. He’d been obsessed with her. He’d believed that perhaps everything wasn’t always meant to be tragic and sad. And Eva, his sister, had been enraptured with her too, captivated by her beauty and the long, luxurious fall of her glossy chestnut hair.

Luc felt sick inside when he recalled that final ugly day, when the extent of how naive he’d been and how ugly Maria really was had spilled out. She’d shuddered visibly and said, ‘And as for your sister—how can you tolerate her in your family? She’s not even all there—and the way she wants to touch me all the time and play with my hair … it disgusts me.’

Luc felt guilty to this day that he’d allowed her near his beloved sister. He thought of Eva and his mother then, and suddenly resented Jesse bitterly for putting him in a position where he might not be contactable in case they needed him.

Anger at that, and anger at the way she was making him feel in general, fuelled him. He bounded up the stairs to Jesse’s room to knock brusquely on the door.

He heard faint movements inside, and then the door opened to reveal her fresh from the shower, with another robe on and a towel around her head. That heady scent that was uniquely hers reached out and wound around him like a siren’s call, bringing with it all sorts of images of tangled sweaty bodies.