Exquisite Revenge

Jesse blushed against Luc’s chest. What on earth had made her blurt that out? She felt Luc move, and then she was on her back and he was looming over her, looking deliciously tousled and with a dark shadow on his jaw.

They’d been in bed all day and most of the evening, after a brief hiatus at about seven that morning, when Luc had summarily carried her down to the kitchen for a delicious breakfast. By some unspoken agreement they’d spoken of nothing controversial—nothing beyond the island—to link to harsh reality. It was as if they’d silently mutually decided to embark on a tenuous truce.

‘Well, I can assert that you are very good at sex.’

Jesse blushed more now, and put her hands to her face.

Luc took them and pinned them over her head with one hand, before resting his other hand near the apex of her legs. It had an immediate effect on her breathing, and not for the first time in the last twenty-four hours did she welcome physical release over the clamour of voices in her head, urging her to stop and think about what was happening between them …

‘Whoever gave you the idea that you weren’t?’

Jesse squirmed, hating that the fact Luc was holding her hands captive sent such thrills of excitement through her body. ‘I was involved with someone briefly a few years ago. I tried to like it … but when he touched me I just felt cold inside. And yet with you I felt hot the first time you looked at me.’

Luc said, ‘Do you remember bumping into me at that function?’

Jesse nodded and bit her lip. She felt vulnerable now, remembering the way he’d thrust her away from him that night. Sudden doubt assailed her. The cacophony of inner voices became louder. Perhaps this was all part of his plan and even now he was playing her … pretending to desire her … forcing his body to respond.

‘I wanted you then.’

Jesse blurted out, ‘But you pushed me away from you …’

Luc grimaced, his hand tightening on hers fractionally. His other hand was touching the curls covering her sex. ‘I’d been watching you … wondering about you …’

All Jesse’s doubts melted away like traitors. ‘You had?’

He nodded. ‘And then you walked straight into my arms and looked up at me … and seemed to see right into me.’

Jesse felt scary emotion grip her. ‘That’s what I felt too …’

He bent his head to kiss her just as his hand reached for that sweet spot between her legs and Jesse’s back arched. She let emotion and doubt be swallowed up in the heat which rose around them again.

When Luc broke off the kiss he commanded her with a rough voice, ‘Don’t take your hands down or I’ll tie them there.’

Jesse felt the illicit burn of excitement and curled her fingers around the bed’s headboard. Luc made his way down her body, teasing every inch of her with a thoroughness that had her writhing and aching and begging for release. Until he got between her legs, when his breath and mouth sent her soaring up into the light where she couldn’t speak any more.

When he entered her with a cataclysmic thrust Jesse took down her hands, uncaring of his threat, because she had to touch him or die. She shut her eyes and rose up to meet the bliss Luc promised her, ignoring those insidious voices, whispering that she was heading for certain catastrophe.

‘So, tell me how you really learnt to cook.’

Jesse was sitting on a stool with her chin propped in her hand, watching Luc do something very complicated to a fish in a pan. She’d drunk half a glass of wine and felt incredibly mellow. Which most likely also had a lot to do with the fact that this was the evening after their whole day in bed. A bone-deep sense of satisfaction oozed through Jesse’s entire body.

Luc’s voice was light, but she sensed an undercurrent of steel—as if she was touching on a tender point. ‘I told you—my mother had a breakdown after my father died and I had to cook for me and my sister and her when she came out of hospital.’

Impetuously Jesse asked, ‘How did your father die?’

Luc’s jaw tightened. He drizzled some oil over the fish in the pan and it sizzled.

When he said casually, ‘He killed himself,’ Jesse almost missed it. Before she could say anything Luc was explaining, ‘I told you that my sister has special needs? That she’s verging on autistic?’

Jesse nodded, knowing well enough not to mention his father again. Her heart ached for Luc in a very peculiar way, but her mind skittered weakly away from looking at why too closely. Much as it skittered away from analysing anything of the last couple of days too deeply.

Luc went on. ‘I discovered that cooking calmed her. Getting the ingredients and putting them together seemed to occupy her.’ He grimaced. ‘Of course when things didn’t work out as they should she would fly into a rage, but that just made it more imperative that I learn how to do things properly. The more complicated the recipe, the more it would have an effect on her. She would sit for hours and watch a boeuf bourguignon cooking slowly.’

He looked at Jesse and smiled faintly. ‘She’s now working as a chef for a company that caters for people with special needs. It’s like meals on wheels, and they offer opportunities to people like Eva.’

Jesse’s voice was husky. ‘Eva is a pretty name.’

Then Luc asked, ‘So, what happened after your mother died?’