Ronan was spoiling for a fight. Balked of his prey, he was still smarting with frustration at knowing that Cornwell had been there, within reach, and he’d slipped through the net at the last minute.
He felt wound up as tight as an astronaut who had just been counted down to the final launch only to have it aborted in the very last second, and he needed to take out his anger on someone—anyone. Lily just happened to be nearest.
‘Is that a fact?’ he questioned sardonically.
Stung by the way he had implied strong doubt as to the truth of her declaration, Lily welcomed the rush of anger that drove out the panic of moments before.
‘An irrefutable one! Set in stone!’
She eyed him warily as he tilted his handsome head slowly on one side, subjecting her to a lazily insolent and frankly sexual appraisal that took in her flushed cheeks, over-bright eyes, and the ragged breathing that had nothing to do with the frantic race after her brother.
‘And would you like to prove that?’
‘No way!’
But her protest went unheeded. Once more she was caught in that painful grip and tugged towards him with a casual strength against which her feeble attempts at struggle were totally futile. She was crushed up against the potent male heat of him as she had been earlier, but this time it was so very different.
Before she had time to think, even to suspect what he might have in mind, Ronan’s warm lips drifted over her face with a gentleness that was so unexpected she found herself enticed against her will. Her eyes closed, a soft, involuntary murmur of delight escaping her.
Ronan judged to the precise second the point where her defences weakened, and in that moment he captured her lips with stunning effect. From being grounded and in control, she was suddenly adrift in a blazing stratosphere, every one of her senses, every nerve, every cell shooting into orbit in the space of a single heartbeat. There was no warning, no countdown, just instant ignition, blasting her far away from any landmark she recognised and into an alien universe where she had no point of contact with anything she believed to be reality.
It was a world of pure sensation. Hungry flames licked along her veins, setting her blood alight as she kissed him back in a wild expression of need. Her whole body ached for the feel of his against it, her breasts feeling tight and heavy, yearning for the caress of those strong, warm hands. But the wildest, the most urgent sensation of all was the hungry, pulsing demand that centred at the core of her femininity.
And this time Ronan was every bit as aroused as she was, the excitement betrayed by his strong body matching hers at every point. This time his heart thundered at a heightened pace that quickened his breathing and drove a hectic colour high onto his carved cheekbones. Crushed as she was against the lean, powerful lines of his body, Lily couldn’t be unaware of the most telling sign of all, the blatant physical evidence of the heated arousal that was pressed so intimately against the curve of her hip.
She shivered at the thought of the contrast between this Ronan and the man she had seen only a few minutes before. Then he had been as coldly ruthless in his determination to wreak his revenge as he now burned hotly with scorching passion.
Or did he?
The sudden shock of cold reality was like the splash of icy water in her face, making her shiver in fearful reaction. How could she have forgotten how coolly and calculatedly he had made love to her on their wedding night? Or rather, she amended with brutal realism, how cold-bloodedly he had had sex with her. She refused to honour what had passed between them with the name of love, on Ronan’s part at least.
He had taken her with callous indifference to her feelings, used her for his own pleasure, and then he had discarded her without a second thought, not even looking back as he walked away. A man who was capable of doing that, a man clearly not troubled by a sensitive conscience, could perfectly well do exactly the same again if the opportunity arose. And she had been fool enough to come very close to handing him just that chance on a plate.
‘And what are you proving now, sweetheart?’ Ronan murmured against her cheek, his warm breath feathering across her jaw, tantalising the delicate curve of her ear. ‘Are you trying to show how much you detest me? Is that it? So tell me, is your skin crawling now, my Lily? Do you truly hate my touch?’
‘Yes, I do!’
It was a cry of agonised despair, ripping into the early evening air with a force that stilled the birds in the trees, silencing their busy chirping.
‘Oh, God, yes, I do! I hate it! I abhor you!’
Her voice shook terribly on the words because it was only now that she realised just how clever and manipulative Ronan had been, how coldly calculating and monstrously indifferent to anything she might have suffered. How his waiting, his patience where the sexual side of their relationship was concerned, had been only a ploy designed to lull her into foolish compliance.
If he had pushed or pressurised her in any way she might have backed off, tried to put some distance between them, or at least hesitated and slowed the frantic rush to the altar they had embarked on. But instead he had been so wickedly cunning.
He had shown all the guile of a hunting wolf, homing in on her as a skilful predator singled out its prey, isolating the weakest animal from the rest of the herd. He had prowled around her, watching with cold, heartless composure, waiting with infinite patience, knowing that all he had to do was to hold back and she would do the rest. She would create her own destruction, hand herself to him, a willing sacrifice, without his having to lift a finger.
He had let her know how much he wanted her. He had made it only too plain that he was hungry for her, physically at least, but that for her sake he had curbed that desire, crushed it ruthlessly until she was prepared to meet him in it. He had let her think that she could set the pace at whatever speed she felt comfortable with.
And because she’d felt the same as she’d thought he did, because she’d desired him every bit as much as he had made her believe he wanted her, it had been her hunger that drove them on. Her need that had made her only too willing to agree to the earliest possible wedding date. Her passion that had tried to rush them into bed on their wedding night and so laid herself open to the barbaric disillusionment of his desertion the following morning.
He had walked out on her after taking her body and soul as his own and holding them captive. He had made her his loving slave that night and she doubted if she would ever break free of the chains in which she’d let him bind her weak, vulnerable heart.
‘You once said you loved me,’ Ronan murmured in a hatefully soft voice that whispered over her sensitised nerves, setting them jangling like an out of tune guitar.
That must have been the sort of voice the serpent had used in the Garden of Eden, Lily thought on a wave of desperation. It was no wonder it had enticed Eve so easily. Even hating Ronan as she did at this moment, it was a struggle to break free of its cajoling magic.
‘Loved being the operative word!’ she flung at him, golden eyes blazing defiance up into his darkened blue ones. ‘But you destroyed all that when you walked out on me. You killed every bit of love I ever felt for you and left only emptiness in its place!’
‘And now?’ The question had a strangely husky intonation, as if he hadn’t used his voice for some time.
‘Now?’
Lily smiled with a mocking triumph that matched the one he had shown her earlier, straight into those watchful eyes.
‘Now you’ve given me something to fill up that emptiness. Now there’s no space left—my heart and my mind are full of hate for you. Total, unyielding, unchangeable, all-devouring hate. And believe me, it feels wonderful!’
‘Hate?’ He made the word a sound that blended frank incredulity with a strangely shaken laugh. ‘So what you felt—what just happened between us—that was hate?’
Incensed by his open scepticism, Lily tossed her hair back, her chin coming up even higher. If he had carefully sharpened a knife before handing it to her, he couldn’t have provided her with a weapon she would more happily use against him.
‘You’re one hell of a sexy man, Ronan,’ she drawled huskily, letting her burning eyes run over him in a deliberate parody of the sensual survey to which he had subjected her a short time before. ‘A real stud. But you must know that. Just as you know that we strike sparks off each other whenever we touch.’
Pausing to draw breath, she caressed him with her eyes, smiling seductively as she saw the widening of his pupils that revealed his instantaneous response. With provocative deliberation she ran her soft pink tongue along the fullness of her lower lips before she continued.
‘Any fool can see that we’re hot together—scorching—so I’d be a fool to even try and deny it. My mind and my heart may be repelled by you, but you turn my body on just by existing.’
Her smile grew harder as the sudden flare of something deep in those indigo eyes showed that he was well aware of her pointed reference to the way he had said almost the same thing to her on the morning after their wedding.
‘What you gave me during our one brief night together was amazing—erotically exciting, sexual dynamite. It’s an experience I wouldn’t mind repeating over and over again. But this time with no emotion involved, no feeling at all, on either side.’