'No one, least of all you, my darling wife, gives me my marching orders,' he snarled, his voice deep and harsh. His mouth crushed down on hers in a savage, brutal assault. When he finally lifted his head to stare with hostile eyes into her flushed face, she was clinging to his broad shoulders, her robe gaping open, her body melded against his, to her shame once mote a slave to his passion.
'This David of yours certainly didn't satisfy you, my insatiable little wanton,' Luc rasped savagely, and, lifting his hand, he stroked over the burgeoning fullness of her breast. 'You want me still, Parisa. I can see it in your eyes, so don't try to deny it.'
It was true; she did want him. She stilled in his arms, and forced herself to ignore the rising heat in her overwrought body. She took a step back, pushing him away, her blue eyes brilliant with sensuous arousal but, even more, with a fast growing, furious rage.
'No denial, Parisa,' he mocked, once more reaching for her.
The last slender thread of her self-control finally snapped as she looked up into his dark face and saw the smug, knowing gleam in his black eyes. She turned on him like a virago. 'You conceited, arrogant bastard!' She pushed him again in the chest, and, recovering once more, he reached out for her. But she avoided him. 'You call me a wanton! That's rich, coming from you. At least if I have a lover it's one at a time, but you... You couldn't stay true to one woman for two weeks.' Wildly she flung out her hand in a gesture of dismissal. ' "You go down to Hardcourt, Parisa",' she parodied his voice.' "I have a lot of work", you said. Work! What a joke. Work on your mistress, Margot. Do you think I am a complete idiot? You're a raging bloody sex maniac. I'm an angel in comparison. And as for wanting you... well, buster,
I have news for you. I'd see you in hell before I would let you touch me again. Now get out...'
'You know about Margot?' he prompted, his handsome face paling beneath his tan, his strong hands dropping to his sides.
Parisa laughed, a harsh, cynical sound. 'I've known about Margot Mey since before I ever met you again.' Revenge was sweet, she thought furiously. 'When I burgled your apartment I entered by the bathroom window, not the door, and overheard you telling Miss Mey you hadn't time. A first for you, no doubt,' she couldn't resist observing mockingly. 'But you promised to make it up to her later. I must say, Luc, you could do with expanding your English. You used almost the same words to me when you left me in Italy.' Her blue eyes clashed with black and the anger she saw in his made her sick. He was furious because he had been found out, she thought bitterly. 'It only surprises me that your usual super efficiency let you down at last, though, given your appetite, no doubt two at a time would probably appeal to you.'
Parisa spun around and headed for the door. Margot had described Luc as a 'master of passion', and to Parisa's shame, he had been where she was concerned. But no more... She couldn't stand to look at the man any longer. Remembering the last time she had seen him was too painful. He had left her in bed, sated by his loving, but with someone else lined up to take her place. He had caused her nothing but pain and heartache from the minute she had first laid eyes on him. She almost made it out of the room...
'Wait, Parisa.' A strong arm curved around her waist, lifting her from the floor.
'Let me go, you pig!' she spat.
'No, Parisa, please...'
She began fighting in earnest, but Luc was a very big man, and with insulting ease he manhandled her to the old four-poster bed and dropped her in the middle. Following her down, he grasped her wildly flaying arms and pinned them to her sides, while the pressure of his huge body held her a prisoner beneath him.
'You cannot fling accusations like that around and not give me a chance to repudiate them!'
'Why not? You do...' she sneered, still furious at his assumption that she had spent the weekend with a man.
'Dio! Parisa, what kind of a man do you think I am?' he demanded hoarsely. 'Do you honestly believe I have so little respect, so few morals that I would keep two women at the same time?'
'Yes. Now let me up,' she said coldly. 'You and I have nothing more to say to each other.'
'Well, I have plenty to say to you, and you are not going anywhere until we have talked.' His handsome face was flushed and frowning. 'First I want to know what you meant by saying my usual efficiency had deserted me. You were talking about the last night at the hotel.' She watched him and could see his astute brain mulling over her words. 'What exactly happened after I left to visit Mother that made you run away?'
'What's the point?' Parisa turned her head to one side. She didn't want to face him, suddenly afraid she might have revealed more than she wanted him to know.
'Tell me; I demand to know,' he insisted. 'I left a willing woman in my bed and came back to an empty suite, and a lipstick scrawl on the mirror.'
'The colour of the lipstick should have told you,' she snapped.
'Bright red. His hard body moved restlessly above hers. She could feel the heat from his long limbs burning into her, but was powerless to move. She could almost hear his brain ticking over.
'You never wear scarlet lipstick. Margot called at the hotel.'
'Got it in one.'
'You were jealous...
Parisa stared up at him, and the devil was actually smiling. 'You're mad—stark, staring mad...' she told him bluntly.
'Yes, you're right, I am mad,' he agreed. His mouth twisted in a derisive smile. 'I suspect I've been slightly mad for years, and I know for a fact I've been crazy for the past few months. Crazily in love with a blue-eyed cat burglar.'
Parisa blinked. She was dreaming again; she had to be. She imagined she had heard Luc declare he loved her. But no, it wasn't a dream. She heard his shaky sigh as he rolled off her, and, swinging his legs to the floor, he sat up.
'Nothing to say, Parisa?' The silence was agonising, but she could not break it. She did not dare let down the precarious barrier she had built around her heart in the past few weeks. She was terrified of making a fool of herself yet again with this man. 'Why should you believe me?' he continued, and she was presented with his forceful profile, which revealed nothing. 'I've treated you abominably, and my only excuse is madness.' A harsh laugh escaped him. 'You were right in my anger and conceit when you ran away from the hotel. I packed up your clothes in a fit of rage, and thought, let her stew for a couple of weeks.
God knows! I spent two months agonising over you and in the end had to come and find you. But this time I've left it too late. You've found someone else, and all I can do is attack you like a madman.'