‘What if we were to set a time limit on it then?’ Abby said. ‘We could draw up an agreement so we both agree on the terms.’
His mouth opened and closed as if he were going to say something but changed his mind. Then he let out an exasperated sigh. ‘Will you please get dressed? I can’t think straight with you standing there like that.’
Abby stroked her hand down the length of his chest, stopping just above the waistline of his tented pyjama pants. ‘Do you really want me to get dressed?’ She channelled her inner sexy siren with a whisper-soft voice.
He swallowed again and took her by the hips almost roughly. ‘No, damn it, I don’t.’ He brought his mouth down to hers in a blistering kiss that shot a bolt of lightning through her flesh.
She pressed closer, her barely covered breasts crushed against his chest, his sprinkling of hair intensifying the sensation like all her nerves were on the outside of her skin. The sheet was slipping but she didn’t care. She was too caught up in the moment. The thrilling moment of feeling Luke’s flaming lust. For her. His erection jutted against her as if his body was taking control, going on impulse not reason. His tongue came in search of hers in a smooth sexy slide and another hot spurt of longing darted through her.
He groaned against her mouth, a groan that sounded as if it had come from deep inside him. Somewhere deep and dark and closed off but now finally creaking open. His hands moved from grasping her hips to mould her to his body, one arm a steel band around her back, the other gliding up the back of her neck to splay his fingers into her hair, making her scalp tingle as if sherbet was trickling through her hair.
But just as suddenly as the kiss started, it was over.
Luke pulled back from her and released her, his expression a contorted mixture of lust and disgust. ‘That should never have happened. I’m sorry.’
Abby wasn’t one bit sorry. Her lips were buzzing, her inner core was fizzing and every cell in her body was clapping their hands for an encore. But there was only so much rejection her self-esteem could take. Was the disgust she’d seen on his face for him or for her?
She had offered herself and he had said an emphatic no. His body might want her but the rational part of him didn’t.
Both parts of her wanted him. Every part.
Every throbbing, aching part.
Abby gathered the sheet more securely around her body, avoiding his gaze. ‘I’m going to have a shower. I guess I’ll see you downstairs.’
‘I have to go in to work for most of today.’
‘Do you usually work on Saturdays? No, don’t answer that. I already know. Of course you do because you have no life other than work,’ she said in a teasing tone, desperately wanting him to see how damaging it was to deny himself any longer.
‘I took you to the ball as agreed, okay?’
‘Which you enjoyed.’ Abby eyeballed him. ‘Didn’t you? Go on, admit it, Luke. You had a good time.’
His gave an indifferent shrug. ‘The ball was important to you so I took you. End of story.’
‘What about that kiss?’
Something flickered over his features like a glitch in a film reel. ‘What about it?’
‘Actually, there were two,’ Abby said. ‘The one last night in the car and this one just now. You seemed to enjoy those too.’
He did something with his mouth, a sort of twitch and sideways movement of his lips, as if to remove the memory of those kisses. But his gaze was as shuttered as a beach house in winter. ‘I’ll be back around six this evening.’ He took a couple of strides for the en suite bathroom.
‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’
He turned and frowned. ‘What?’
She pointed to the sheet she was wrapped in. ‘I don’t have any clothes.’
‘What about the dress you wore last night?’
Abby rolled her eyes like the ball bearings in a child’s puzzle maze. ‘Duh. That would be akin to the walk of shame to be seen out in public in a ball gown in broad daylight. Very morning-after-the-night before-ish. I hate feeling so…so vulnerable. So exposed.’
He seemed to be having some trouble getting his voice to work. He kept opening and closing his mouth as if he were having some sort of internal debate. ‘Right, then I’ll show you Kimberley’s things and maybe there’ll be something you could make do with until you go home.’
But when Luke pulled back the sliding door of his wall-to-wall wardrobe there were only a few female items hanging to one side, well away from his neatly ordered shirts and ties and crisply seamed trousers.
‘Help yourself,’ he said, stepping away as if even looking at the clothes was painful.