CHAPTER SIX
BREATHLESS and stunned as Luca captured her furiously flailing hands in one of his, Darcy whispered in outrage, 'What do you think you're doing?'
'I'm not thinking right now,' Luca confided, luxuriant lashes low on liquid golden eyes of sensual appraisal as he scanned the riot of bright curls on her small head. 'I'm wondering how long your hair will get in six months... You'll grow it for me, just as you will do so many other things just for me—'
'Dream on!'
Confident eyes gleamed down into scorching green.
As Luca slowly lowered his lean, well-built body down onto hers, a jolt of sexual awareness as keen and sharp as an electric shock currented through Darcy. The sensation made her even more determined to break free.
Luca banded both arms more fully round her violently struggling figure. 'Calm down...you'll hurt yourself!' he urged impatiently.
'You are in the wrong position to tell me to do that!' Darcy warned breathlessly.
'Assault would be grounds for separation too,' Luca in¬formed her indolently.
Darcy's knee tingled. She, who had never in her entire life hurt another human being, now longed to deliver a crip¬pling blow. Luca contemplated her with almost scientific interest, making no attempt to protect himself. 'I want to hurt you!' she suddenly screeched at him in driven fury.
'But this crumbling pile of bricks and mortar stands be¬tween you and that desire,' Luca guessed with galling accuracy. 'It will be interesting to see how much you will tolerate before you snap and surrender.'
Darcy's blood ran cold at that unfeeling response.
'You'll play the whore in my bed for the sake of this house...but then what you've already done once should come even more easily a second time,' Luca surmised icily.
'You're talking rubbish, because I'll never sleep with you...I will never sleep with you again!' In a wild move¬ment of repudiation, Darcy garnered the strength to tear herself free. But Luca had frighteningly fast reflexes. With a rueful sigh over her obstinacy, he snapped long fingers round her shoulder before she could move out of reach, and simply tipped her back into his arms.
'Of course you will,' he countered levelly then, brilliant dark eyes locked to her furiously flushed face.
'I won't!' Darcy swore.
As Luca slowly anchored her back to the mattress with his superior body weight, the all pervasive heat of his big, powerful frame engulfed her limbs in a drugging paralysis. Momentarily Darcy forgot to struggle. She also forgot to breathe.
Luca angled down his arrogant dark head and tasted her soft mouth with a devastatingly direct hunger that shot right down to her toes. Her lips burned; her thighs trembled. She looked up at him in complete shock, her mind wiped clean of thought. But her heart pounded as if she was fighting for her life, her pupils dilated, her breath coming in tiny frantic pants. She collided with the blaze of sexual chal¬lenge in his gaze and it was as if he had thrown the switch on her self-control. Dear heaven, she loved it when he looked at her like that...
Deep down inside, she melted with terrifying anticipation of the excitement to come. Her breasts stirred inside her cotton bra, nipples peaking with painful suddenness into taut, straining buds. Luca shifted and she felt the hard, mas¬culine thrust of his erection against her pelvis. She quiv¬ered, her spine arching as her yielding body flooded with liquid heat and surrender. Neither one of them heard the soft rap on the bedroom door.
His dark eyes burned gold with fierce satisfaction. He rimmed her parted lips with the tip of his tongue, teasing, taunting, the warmth of his breath fanning her, locking her into breathless intimacy.
Every atom of her being was des¬perate for his next move, the moist, sensitive interior of her mouth aching for his penetration.
'Fight me...' Luca instructed huskily. 'After all the fun of the chase, an easy victory would be a real disappoint¬ment.'
Almost simultaneously, a loud knock thudded on the sturdy door. Darcy flinched and jerked up her knee in fright, accidentally connecting with Luca's anatomy in an unfortunate place. As he wrenched back from her in stunned pain and incredulity Darcy cried, 'Oh, no...gosh, I'm sorry!' and she reeled off the bed like a drunk, franti¬cally smoothing down her rumpled sweater and striving to walk in a straight line to the door.
'Is Luca with you, signora?' Benito enquired levelly. 'The helicopter has arrived early.'
Hearing a muffled groan from somewhere behind her, Darcy coughed noisily to conceal the sound, and with crim¬son cheeks she muttered defensively, 'I don't know where he is...and we can't leave yet anyway. I have hens to feed.'
'Hens...' Benito echoed, and nodded very slowly at that information.
Closing the door again, and tactfully not looking in Luca's direction, Darcy whispered in considerable embar¬rassment, 'Are you all right, Luca?'