LITMIR.BIZ

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on the couch was anything but. She could feel the taut energy coming off him in waves. She wanted a huge hole to open up in the floor and swallow her whole. And, what was even worse, she was dangerously close to thinking about calling for a plane just to get him out of there and away from her. The only thing stopping her was the realisation that this was exactly what he wanted …

      She struggled to hang on to her sanity. ‘It was definitely a mistake, and it won’t happen again. I won’t let you do this … toy with me, pretend to want me … just because you think I’ll give in to your demands if you seduce me.’

      Jesse was shaking now, and she pointed a finger of her free hand at Luc. ‘Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to, Luc Sanchis. All you’ve done is prove that I’m as humiliatingly susceptible to your overblown sexuality as the next indisciminate woman.’

      ‘Ouch,’ Luc said, and made a mock wincing face. Then his expression became much more stark and, sitting forward, elbows on his knees, he admitted, ‘For your information, Jesse, a man does not do what I just did for the hell of it. He generally needs to really, really want to do it.’

      Jesse recalled his face as he’d looked up at her and said throatily, Let me taste you. A fresh wave of shame washed over her. She backed away towards the entrance to the room. Luc stood up and her panic rose. If he touched her again … Her mind blanked at the prospect.

      ‘No. It was a mistake. I won’t be so weak again.’

      And with that she turned and fled, bare feet slapping across the floor of the hall and then up the stairs to her room, two stairs at a time. She heard Luc curse behind her, and then she could hear his footsteps. Panic galvanised her and she got into her room and closed the door just as his hand connected with it.

      ‘Go away!’ Jesse shouted.

      But Luc opened the door and pushed. Jesse couldn’t hold it and sprang back into the room. Luc stood there like some marauding pirate of old, dominating the doorway. She was still clutching her shirt. A treacherous lick of excitement curled through Jesse’s abdomen.

      It shook her so much she said, ‘Get away from me, you … animal! You don’t want me any more than you want a block of wood and you’re only trying to mess with my head. I won’t let it happen again.’

      Luc emitted a sound like a growl and crossed the room to Jesse. He grabbed her hand and placed it roughly onto a very hard part of his anatomy. She could feel the blood rushing to heat her face—which was ridiculous when she thought of what he’d just been doing to her.

      He felt massive.

      He pressed her hand even closer. ‘Do you think I can just conjure that response up? Do you really think that’s the sign of a man who is disengaged with what he’s doing? I don’t know where you did your biology classes, but I can assure you it’s not.’

      She was stunned to recognise that he was angrier than she’d ever seen him before. With that he flung her hand away and strode back to the door, leaving Jesse standing there tingling all over and with a dull, throbbing ache between her legs.

      He stopped abruptly by the door and Jesse heard something clink, like metal against metal, and then he turned around to face her again. She couldn’t make out his expression, because he was in shadow, but she could see what he was holding up in his hand. It glinted in the low lamplight: the key from the door.

      Instantly she went clammy all over. He wouldn’t …

      ‘Let’s see how you like being a prisoner for a while, Jesse. I think that’s only fair, don’t you?’

      Then he was gone, and the door was shut, and Jesse heard the key turn in the lock. And her world disintegrated around her.

      Luc went downstairs, borne aloft by the rage thrumming through his blood. All he could see was red, and he cursed his own rampant body which was refusing to cool down. What did he think he was doing? All but stripping Jesse completely and making love to her on the couch like some horny, out-of-control teenager?

      Luc was used to sophisticated surroundings and sophisticated women. He was used to a certain controllable level of arousal which never became something so blindingly white-hot and intense that he forgot who he was and where he was.

      And that was the problem.

      He stood in the centre of the living room and funnelled his fingers through his hair. He’d never lost it like that. Not even with Maria. He scowled, hating how comparisons between Jesse and Maria kept popping into his head, as if to flag up to him that this whole situation was ten times more volatile.

      He’d set out to seduce Jesse, yes. He’d set out to unsettle her, and perhaps to encourage her to trust him by making her vulnerable to him.

      He saw her in his mind’s eye as she’d stood there clasping her shirt, spitting mad. He wasn’t making her vulnerable at all. He was making her even harder to win around. So much for his famed charm.

      Luc cursed.

      He strode into the kitchen and saw Tigger’s box. He hoped that by tending to the kitten for a few minutes it might calm him down. But the delicacy of the tiny animal in his hands only served to remind him of how delicate Jesse had felt under his hands. Damn, damn, damn.

      Luc went back to the living room and found the drinks cabinet and poured himself a healthy shot of the finest Irish whiskey. Mentally apologising to the absent owner, he downed it in one.

      The fact was his extreme response to kissing Jesse and how fast things had escalated out of control unsettled him. It had manifested as anger at her, but now he could see that it was entirely directed at himself.

      Luc took another healthy swig of whiskey before putting the bottle back. He thought of Jesse, upstairs stewing, too stubborn to ask to be let out of her room, and felt a wry grin tugging at his mouth. And just as quickly that insidious heat he felt whenever he thought of her crept back into his body, firing his blood all over again.

      Luc sighed deeply and then went towards the stairs. Time to repair the damage and try to keep his hands off Jesse long enough to make her believe that he had at least an ounce of civility in him—although he couldn’t imagine anything he wanted more than to strip her bare completely and lock them both in a room for the forseeable future.

      Outside her door he couldn’t hear a sound. He knocked lightly. ‘Jesse?’

      Nothing.

      Something like foreboding trickled down Luc’s spine and he turned the key in the lock and opened the door. The room was exactly as he’d left it, and at first he couldn’t see Jesse, but once his eyes adjusted to the dim light he saw her: she was huddled with her knees up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them in a corner of the room.

      Something about her form told him that this was not her sulking. He walked over and crouched down in front of her. ‘Jesse? What …?’

      Her head was down on her knees, and Luc saw then that she was trembling all over. He sat and slid along the wall beside her, put his arm around her, tugging her stiff body to him. Something was terribly wrong.

      ‘Jesse, what is it? What happened?’

      Her voice was muffled and she was out of breath. ‘Locked in … can’t get out … need help …’

      Luc cursed his impetuosity. Carefully he tried to take Jesse’s arms from around her legs and put a hand under her jaw. His stomach clenched when he felt the unmistakable moisture of tears on her face.

      She wouldn’t or couldn’t look at him. Her eyes seemed to be sightless. He recognised shock.

      ‘Jesse, you’re not locked in any more. The door is open. You’re here with me, Luc. It’s okay. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have locked you in.’

      Jesse was shaking her head, the trembling in her body increasing. ‘No … you don’t understand. It’s my mother. She’s dead. She’s died and I can’t

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