Luke stared at her, his blue eyes ablaze. He shook his head in a negative gesture of denial. 'You've not the faintest idea what you're talking about,' he said huskily.
She glared back through the glitter of tears, ignoring the air of suspended violence in him, the clenched jaw and rampant glow in his eyes that should have made her subside. 'I'm not that stupid, Luke. My dilemma fell into your lap like a gift from the gods, didn't it?' she accused. 'The only mistake I made was not realising how irrelevant I, as a person, am to you… how far you'd actually go to wreak some sort of vengeance. You'd actually make love to me, wouldn't you, to hit back? Although love would be the wrong word, wouldn't it?' For a moment her voice was completely suspended by tears. She ignored the low growl that was emitted from his throat, a raw, primal sound that made the hairs on the nape of her neck stand on end.
'What had you intended doing, Luke? Closing your eyes and composing your poisonous taunts? No greater sacrifice has man…I'm sure your mother would have been proud. Your touch makes my skin crawl,' she added with defiance. 'I suggest you think of some other method to achieve the ultimate revenge, because I sure as hell am not going to co-operate!'
His feet crunched the broken china into powder as he strode towards her. His hands closed around her skull as he sat on the edge of the narrow bed. His face was terrifyingly furious as he focused on her, and the power in his hands as his fingers tightened forced her up to her knees.
'Go on,' she taunted. 'Hate me by association. At least that's honest, instead of pretending…'
'Pretending what?' His voice was husky, almost unsteady as his eyes flared at her studied, desperate insolence.
'Pretending you find me attractive,' she spat out. 'I'm not that stupid, you know. It's about the ultimate humiliation to be a pawn. It makes me feel soiled.'
The blue eyes were reaching melting-point and instinctively she tried to draw back, but his fingers had wrapped themselves into the strands of her hair and the effort made her whimper in pain.
'You're a liar,' he snarled as his pupils dilated, almost obliterating the cerulean colour of the twin points of fire. 'That's not the way my touch makes you feel…' His words thudded into her with the same intensity as the drowning sound of her heartbeat pounding in her ears. She closed her eyes on a soundless cry of protest as his mouth sought her trembling lips. The harsh sound of his breathing was loud in her ears, and she heard the swift, ragged moan of his painfully ragged inhalation as she opened her mouth for his invasive tongue. The sound and the touch made her knees crumble. He fell with her to the bed and they lay thigh to thigh, breast to breast…heart to heart.
The hunger, the driving, empty hunger was all- consuming; it had found a corresponding need in the aggressive masculinity of him that was pushing her to fever pitch. Hands in his hair, lips on his skin, she was muttering a series of inarticulate pleas, unaware that her mouth issued the soft noises. The forays of his tongue in her moist mouth were alternately teasing and plundering, while his hands moving over her body made her aware of a vital sensuality, a pleasure in the intense sensations he was evoking with the slightest butterfly touch on a vulnerable area.
'Soiled, Emily?' His voice, husky, slurred, was almost unrecognisable. For a moment he examined her flushed, shocked face, his eyes incandescent. A groan was wrenched from his throat as he felt her flinch. He rolled over on to his side and, running unsteady hands through his tousled dark hair, levered himself from the low divan. 'If you're going to attack me with the unvarnished truth, infant, make sure it's just that,' he said, showing no mercy for her sharp gasp of anguish. 'If it's any comfort, I don't choose to—' she saw his throat work as his eyes ran with a compulsive need he was obviously fighting over her body, clothed only in the brief nightshirt '—respond to you,' he finished throatily. He bent forward and lifted a hank of her thick hair, letting it slide silkily through his fingers, his expression almost abstracted as he did so.
Emily felt pleasure; nerve-endings craving contact purred into warm life at his touch. The impulse had no consciousness behind it; it was a response to the erotic glow still engulfing her, sheer spontaneity. She took his wrist in both her hands and, turning his fist palm upwards, pressed her lips to the skin.
His head jerked back as though she'd struck him and his breath whistled out with a sibilant hiss. 'What is this, infant, role reversal?'
Her hands had already fallen away. Miserably aware of how wide she'd opened herself for his retributive attack, she lowered her eyes. 'I wanted…' She bit her lip. How to make things worse, she thought; I could write the definitive book.
'In an hour's time, maybe two, you'd accuse me of sleeping with you to satisfy my unhealthy desire for revenge.'