She didn’t speak. She just fucking watched him.
He glanced back at her, fury pulsing through his body at the soft, welling emotion in those deep brown eyes. Eyes that ensnared him, that made him feel. Damn her to bloody fucking hell, if he wanted to feel this, he would have sought her out. She wouldn’t have had to come to him.
“It’s just sex,” he snarled again, the anger pumping through his veins, thickening his blood, forcing his heart to race to keep it flowing through his veins.
“Yes, Ian. It’s just sex,” she agreed, too softly, too easily and with too much goddamned emotion in her voice.
“And don’t forget it. ” He jerked the shirt over his shoulders before bending to collect his shoes and socks. “Never fucking forget it. ”
“Never, Ian. ” She sounded satisfied, not sated, but her voice echoed with pleasure.
Clenching his teeth against the surging forces rising within him, he turned and stomped from her room, striding quickly to his own.
It was just sex…
He pushed his fingers roughly through his hair at the thought. If it was just sex, if it were nothing more than he had known with all the women before him, then why did he crave her touch now, more than he had before he went to her? Why did he hunger for something that had no name, no definition? Something that now ate at his soul and he knew would never again allow him any peace.
If it was just sex, then why in the hell was his soul screaming that it was more…
So much more…
* * * * *
The last thing Courtney wanted to do was leave Ian and have lunch, go shopping or try to be civil in any way, shape or form. She wanted to race after Ian, wanted to scream at him, demand that he stop hiding from her just when she could feel him reaching out to her.
But she showered, dressed, and when she left her room she restrained from slamming the bedroom door and cursing violently.
Ian, of course, was no place to be found.
Hiding.
Coward.
She wanted to rage with him, rage at him. She didn’t want to leave and give him the opportunity to build even more defenses against her. She wanted to hold him, feel again that merging she had known could exist between them. The completion that had, for endless seconds, rushed through her senses and left her shuddering in the aftermath.
“I think we need drinks before lunch,” Tally Conover commented as Courtney joined her in the foyer, her gaze sharp, her expression thoughtful. “And we definitely need to talk to Kimberly. ”
Courtney barely refrained from glaring at her.
“Come along, dear, girls’ day out. Do you need to inform Ian you may be late?”
“I’ll need to be late?” Her fingers clenched on her purse as she fought to make herself follow the other woman to the door the butler held open politely.
“Please inform Ian that Ms. Mattlaw may be severely late returning tonight,” she informed him imperiously. “I’m certain he’ll understand why. ”
Courtney hoped to hell he did, because she didn’t.
Her senses were overloaded. She had no business venturing out into the real world right now, and she knew it.
“This might not be a good idea,” she sighed as she stepped into Tally’s sporty little Jaguar. “Perhaps we should go shopping some other time. ”
“I agree with you one hundred percent. ” She might agree, but the amusement in her voice assured Courtney that the other woman had no intention of canceling whatever plans were in the making.
“I think a nice quiet lunch at my home, with a few friends, and plenty of drinks are in order. What do you say?”
Courtney turned to stare at her as tires screamed in protest at the quick application of gas she gave the vehicle. She jerked in the seat, frowning at the thought of whiplash.
“Will we get there in one piece?” She winced as Tally shot onto the main street, barely glancing at oncoming traffic as she did so.