by Penny Jordan
‘Suzy…’
‘Please,’ she begged.
‘Suzy, this isn’t—’
‘I love you, Luke,’ Suzy burst out, unable to keep her feelings to herself any longer. ‘I love you and I want you. You saved my life, and in some ancient cultures when a person saves another person’s life it means that that person belongs to them for ever. And I want to belong you, Luke—even if it is just for tonight.’ She was speaking so quickly her words were falling over one another. She had had it all worked out, what she would say to him, but suddenly, halfway through her planned speech, her courage began to desert her. ‘You are my soul mate, Luke,’ she whispered.
Everything she was saying was true, but once she would never, ever have said such words—because her pride would not have allowed her to do so! Her brush with death had changed her, Suzy recognised. She was no longer afraid of being laughed at or rejected. She wanted—she needed Luke to know how she felt.
Luke tried to control what he was feeling. She didn’t mean it! She might think she meant it, but she didn’t. It was the trauma of what she had experienced that was making Suzy feel that she loved him. That and her belief that he had saved her life. After all, she hadn’t loved him before, had she? Once she was over her trauma she would realise that she didn’t love him at all.
Just because he loved her it didn’t mean that he could take advantage of what she was offering right now.
‘Luke…’
Her pleading whisper burned into him like fire. Her hand was touching his belly, tracing the curve of his scar. Luke felt as though he was about to explode with need and hunger.
‘Luke…’
Her breath whispered past his mouth and Luke knew that he was lost. Hungrily he possessed the softness of her lips, savouring them, parting them, thrusting his tongue with hard demand into the sweetness of her mouth.
Without him knowing how it had happened his hand found her breast and cupped it, moulding it, teasing the peak to rise up into his palm as he stroked and tugged its tautness.
He wanted her.
He loved her!
Abruptly Luke reined in his feelings. He loved her and he had to protect her from her traumatised belief that she loved him.
The small whimper of distress she made as he firmly put her from him tore at his heart as nothing ever would tear at it again.
‘Luke…’ Suzy protested achingly. ‘Please stay with me, Luke. Please…’
But he had already gone, firmly closing the door between the bedroom and the sitting room and leaving her on her own.
Suzy gave a small start, unable to believe she had slept for so long. She had originally come up to the bedroom halfway through the afternoon, intending to catch up on the sleep she had lost the previous night, lying awake and longing for Luke.
Luke! She wasn’t sorry that she had told him how she felt about him. She was glad! She was proud of her love, and proud of loving him. Her brush with death had altered her attitude a great deal, she acknowledged, but it did not seem to have altered Luke’s attitude towards her.
He might not love her, but he wanted her, Suzy told herself. Last night he had wanted her—even if he had left her.
Getting out of the bed, she went into the bathroom. She still hadn’t got used to the sensuality of the room, or the open sexuality of its erotic décor. She hadn’t used the huge bath as yet—which was more of a sunken pool than a mere bath—but suddenly she was tempted to try it.
Returning to the bedroom, Suzy picked up the ice bucket and the complimentary book of matches from the pretty desk. Back in the bathroom, she pushed the door closed, put down the ice bucket and then carefully lit the candles that surrounded the bath. Even their shadows seemed to cast intimate and erotic dancing images around the room, and a sensual shudder ran through her. This was dangerous. She knew it was dangerous. But still she filled the bath. The water gushing from the dolphin jets glittered against the mosaic tiles.
The circular pool was so deep that she had to walk down into it. Like a Jacuzzi, it had a ledge to sit on, and was easily large enough to accommodate two people. Two people? Her and Luke? Suzy scooped up a handful of blue-green bath crystals from the jar beside her. As she dropped them into the water it turned a deep cloudy aquamarine before slowly clearing to the colour of the purest sea water. Self indulgently she lay back in it, floating in sumptuous, languid pleasure.
Worriedly Luke opened the bedroom door. It had been Lucy who had told him that Suzy had felt tired after lunch and had gone to lie down. A doctor had checked her over after her ordeal, and had pronounced her fine, but what if he was wrong—what if he had missed something?
And where was Suzy now? Not in either the suite’s sitting room or the bed. Had she got up and gone back outside to join the children by the swimming pool?
It had been a long day—he had been cooped up in his office all morning, rearranging security for the President Njambla’s visit because he had not been happy with it after all. He felt hot and tired and in need of a shower.
Unfastening his shirt, he removed it. In the mirror he could just see the tip of the small, still livid scar that disappeared below the belt of his chinos. The scar Suzy had touched and kissed.
Luke dropped the shirt and rubbed his hand across his forehead and then his eyes. He had to put Suzy first, not himself! But he couldn’t stop thinking about how she had touched him last night in bed, how she had told him that she loved him! Irritated with himself, he stripped off the rest of his clothes. Somehow Suzy had got under his skin in a way that no other woman ever had—under his skin and into his heart. Just thinking about her brought a familiar ache to his body—a fiercely elemental and dangerous ache!
He opened the bathroom door and strode in. And stopped. And stared. He cursed under his breath, because his body was way ahead of him, in reacting to what he could see, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it other than make a grab for a towel.
What the hell was Suzy doing anyway? Just lying there, so that from where he was standing he could see quite plainly every silk-skinned inch of her. She hadn’t seen him yet, though. She was facing away from him, and the steam from the water had made her hair curl wildly.
The scent of the candles she had lit filled his nostrils. Heat, need, hunger poured through him in an unstoppable torrent, filling every nerve-ending.
The towel slid from his fingers as he advanced towards the tub.
The candlelight seemed to highlight the sexuality of the wall frieze, and Suzy stared at it, lost in her own private Luke-filled fantasy. If Luke was with her now…A liquid ache of longing curled up through her body. And then she blinked as suddenly she saw that he was actually standing in front of her.
Pleasure touched her every nerve. She gave him a blissful, adoring smile and murmured his name on a happy sigh before asking curiously, ‘Is that really physically possible?’
As Luke looked up and saw what she was studying a hard burn of colour ran up under his skin. That round-eyed look of innocence she was giving him was destroying him—and his self-control! He looked at the frieze again, and then back at her, where she lay floating in the bath, surrounded by the candles. His gut twisted as he saw the wet tangle of curls between her thighs and the dark peaks of her nipples.
Ignoring her, he headed for the shower.
Suzy could hear its noisy water running and her face burned as she wondered what on earth had possessed her to make such an idiotic remark.
Luke turned off the shower. It had been a wasted exercise, since it had cooled neither his emotions nor his arousal. Padding naked back to the tub, he demanded grimly, ‘Do you want me to tell you if it’s possible—or do you want me to show you?’
‘Luke!’ Suzy turned over too quickly and choked on a mouthful of water as Luke stepped down into the tub beside her.
He was crazy for doing this. Luke knew that. And even more crazy about the woman who was staring at him, her huge eyes already darkened with smoky, sensual arousal and exci
tement.
‘Which one do you want to try first?’ Suzy heard Luke whisper in her ear as he nibbled deliciously on the lobe and stroked a wet fingertip along her collarbone, and down to the valley between her breasts, and then along the upper curve, seeking out the wet thrust of her nipple where it surged above the water in excited eagerness for his touch.
‘Mmm…Well?’ Luke was demanding.
She gave a shocked gasp, her thoughts scattering like raindrops as Luke sank beneath the water, only the top of his head visible, his hair seal-dark and wet. His mouth was cool and firm as he took captive the nipple he had previously claimed, and the sensation of her body floating in the water, Luke’s head between her breasts, his mouth on her nipple, his hand moving determinedly between her thighs was too much for Suzy’s self-control.
The water in the tub might be cooling, but the wetness inside her certainly wasn’t. She could feel its heat spreading through her as Luke’s fingers found her—found her and touched her, stroked her, opened her…
She was beyond reason, beyond reality—beyond anything but this. The stroke of his hand, the suckle of his mouth, the soft rhythmic sensation of the water…
She could feel the surge of her orgasm beginning to mount, as unstemmable as the tide itself, and, as though Luke could feel it too, he picked her up and carried her towards the steps.
The thud of his own arousal beat through his body and echoed in his ears. This wasn’t need, and it wasn’t desire. It went way, way above and beyond that, and it had taken him to a place where he was a stranger, a humble acolyte, only just beginning to learn the true meaning of the new world he had entered.
As he carried her up the steps to the floor, Suzy could see their reflections in the mirror. Water ran from their bodies and her nipples, swollen from his caresses, peaked dark and hard in the candlelit room.
‘Which position do you want to try first?’ he asked again.
Luke had placed her on a pile of soft towels and was leaning over her. Excitement, shock and disbelief ran through her veins like liquid fire. Her body ached heavily with unsatisfied need, and Suzy knew she didn’t care how he completed their union just so long as he did. She was in physical pain with her desire to have him inside her, her emotions and her body coiled to breaking point.
‘This one?’ His voice was a dark, tormenting whisper against the back of her neck as he moved her.
Shudders ran through her body as his hands stroked the skin of her bowed back. In the mirror she could see him leaning over her, his erection straining from the silky mat of hair surrounding its base.
‘Is this what you want?’ he whispered dangerously.
His hands were on her hips, and as she tilted her head back to look above the mirror and over their reflections she could see the position he was mimicking on the wall above them.
Violent shudders convulsed her.
‘Or would you prefer this one?’
Suzy had to grit her teeth to prevent herself from crying out for him to stop tormenting her as he moved her again. Her body seemed to have no means of moving by itself. It had become completely obedient to his touch, whilst deep inside her the tension continued to grow so that she felt as though at any second it would spill from her and flood through her.
Her gaze embraced his erection with a molten look of longing and hunger. She reached out and touched him, hot flesh beneath her shaking fingertips, stretched over him, the foreskin pushed back to expose the rounded tip, dark and rosy. She rimmed her fingertip around it feeling his whole body jerk.
Luke could feel himself starting to shudder as his control collapsed in on itself. Her touch was destroying everything he had put up against her. He had become a mindless physical instrument, reliant on her touch, dependent on her response.
He could feel the onset of his orgasm. From a distance he could hear her moaning his name, pleading with him to fill her with his body.
They were still lying on the towels together, and Luke was holding her, lifting her, entering her only just in time. On a surging explosion of relief and release his one powerful thrust carried them to completion on fierce, unending surges of pleasure that racked them again and again whilst he spilled hotly into the waiting, wanting heat of her body.
They were only just in time for dinner. Suzy was pale and lost in her own private bliss-filled world. Her mouth was swollen, but nowhere near as swollen as her breasts and nipples, which she had thankfully been able to conceal beneath her clothes. Her eyes looked slumberous, and somehow sensuously knowing.
As they reached the drawing room door she drew back a little unsteadily to look up at Luke, her gaze filled with so much emotion it hurt Luke to look back at her.
It wasn’t real, he told himself grimly. She just thought she loved him. He had had no right to do what he had just done, and one day she was going hate him for it!
As he already hated himself!
He could feel Suzy quivering at his side. He looked at her again. Her face was pale, her eyes luminous, her mouth…Luke could feel his own pupils dilating in response to the message of those swollen lips. Inside his head he could see, feel, taste the more intimate flesh their swollen softness mimicked.
To his disbelief, Luke realised he had an erection.
‘You go in,’ he told Suzy curtly. ‘I’ve got something I need to do.’
Oblivious to the real meaning of his words, Suzy tried to calm herself as he walked away from her, leaving her to enter the room alone.
Immediately Lucy and Charlie bounded over to her side. They were lovely children, she acknowledged tenderly, and they deserved to have a woman in their lives who truly loved them.
As he stood in his office and willed his erection to subside Luke knew that he could not allow the situation to continue. For Suzy’s sake. If he allowed her to stay on at the villa now he knew he didn’t have a hope of keeping out of her bed…their bed.
Right now she believed she loved him, but Luke knew that she did not. He had to send her away!
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SUZY stared out of the salon window. She felt heavy-eyed from another night of too much thinking. And she had no idea where Luke had spent the night—it certainly hadn’t been with her, in the suite!
The salon door opened and she spun round quickly, but it was Lucy.
‘Are you waiting for Luke?’ she asked Suzy. ‘He’s with Daddy. I wish you were going to be with us always, Suzy,’ Lucy burst out, and then blushed. ‘Some of the girls at school have got stepmothers and they say that they don’t like them, but I think it would be cool if we had one—especially if she was like you.’
Suzy couldn’t stop herself from giving the girl a fierce hug. She was still holding her when the door opened and Luke walked in. He had been avoiding her since they had made love in the bathroom, and Suzy knew it was only Lucy’s presence that prevented her from begging him to tell her why.
‘I wish that you were my stepmother, Suzy,’ Lucy said passionately, hugging her tightly.
Luke frowned when he heard Lucy’s outburst. It was no secret to him that Peter Verey was attracted to Suzy—what sane man would not be? He had had to fight off his own jealousy every evening since Suzy had been at the villa as he’d watched the other man flirting with her, but now it was surging almost out of control, forcing him to turn on his heel and stride out of the room.
Suzy watched him go, confusion filling her. What had caused him to suddenly walk away.
‘So, it looks as though the President isn’t going to show, then?’ Sir Peter questioned.
‘I’m afraid that it does look very much like that,’ Luke agreed grimly as they stood together in his office.
‘We’ve spoken to his people, and reiterated to them just how important this discussion is, but apparently he feels that he would be too exposed if he comes to Europe.’ Luke’s mouth compressed. ‘He’s playing with us, of course. We all know that. But there’s nothing we can do other than wait. There’s a rumour that he needs to be at home at
the moment to quell some potential unrest. If that’s true it could be several months before he’s ready to set up fresh talks.’
‘It looks like we’ve dragged you out here for nothing, Luke,’ Sir Peter apologised.
Luke remained silent. After Sir Peter had left, he typed out a report and made several telephone calls. He had e-mails to answer and a variety of other correspondence to deal with…
It was late afternoon before Luke saw Suzy again. She was playing with the children, oblivious to the fact that he was watching her with a hungry lover’s gaze. Right now he wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and take her to bed, make her tell him how much she loved him.
But he wasn’t going to it. No he was going to send her away.
Suzy looked up as she saw Luke approaching them Her skin was glazed with perspiration and her hair was sticking in exercise-dampened curls to her neck and face. She had enjoyed herself with the children, but Luke had never been out of her thoughts. Automatically she went towards him, and then stopped as he stepped back from her.
‘You shouldn’t be out here overdoing things.’ His voice was clipped, and Suzy stifled her dangerous need to believe that he was speaking so because he cared.
‘I’m fully recovered now,’ she told him valiantly.
‘Good, I’m glad to hear it.’ He paused and looked at her, and something went still and cold inside Suzy’s heart. ‘Sir Peter’s meeting with President Njambla has been cancelled,’ Luke went on, in the clipped voice.
‘I’ve booked you on to a flight for London mid-morning tomorrow.’
‘What? No—Luke…’ Suzy started to protest, but he was already walking away from her, leaving her white faced and desolate as she struggled to contain her pain.
She was still aching with misery a couple of hours later, when she went back to the suite to pack her clothes and have a shower.
For some reason she couldn’t explain, even to herself, she did something she had never done the whole time she had been staying at the villa—and that was to turn the key in the outer door to the suite, locking herself inside and Luke outside! Out of temptation’s way!