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  Tears stung her eyes, pain flooding her as she said huskily, ‘I’m sorry if I don’t have Samantha’s experience.’

  ‘At least Samantha is honest about what she wants,’ Luke came back harshly.

  It was too much: to be compared with Samantha and to be found wanting. Her eyes bright with tears, Gemma ran to the door. She could hear Luke calling her back as she fled, but she didn’t stop until she was back in her own suite, and even then taking the precaution of locking herself in her bathroom, and then running the taps full force so that the sound of the running water obliterated the sound of the sobs of anguish torn from her throat. So much for being adult! She was behaving like a lovelorn teenager. But the pain wouldn’t stop, going on and on, and it was no use telling herself that it was her own fault, that Luke had not invited her into his bed, and that she had known all along that all he felt for her was desire.

  She cringed now to remember her abandoned response to him. How amused he must have been by her naïveté.

  But he hadn’t known she had no previous experience until his body told him so, she remembered now. Surely a man of his sexual expertise must have realised long before that how untutored she was. But then her reaction to him had been so passionate … so wanton …

  Long after her tears had stopped, she remained locked in her bathroom, bathing her eyes in pads soaked in cold water. She heard Luke calling her name outside the bathroom door and tensed.

  ‘Gemma. Are you all right?’

  How galling that he should feel it necessary to ask her that. He must know how much he had hurt her. How stupid she had been.

  Compressing her lips she called back curtly. ‘I’m fine, Luke. Please go away.’

  It seemed to be a long time before she heard him move; so long that her lungs ached from the strain of holding her breath.

  She had rushed into the bathroom with nothing but the robe she had been wearing, and she put it on again, cautiously studying her pale face in the mirror before reaching for the door handle.

  She looked pale, but then that was only to be expected after her attack of heatstroke. Luckily she could wear sunglasses during the day to hide her eyes, which still looked slightly puffy.

  She opened the bathroom door and walked into her bedroom, coming to an abrupt halt as she saw Luke sitting in a chair, his arms folded over his chest.

  ‘Luke.’

  She stared at him, flushing betrayingly, her eyes unknowingly wide and vulnerable.

  ‘I thought …’

  ‘That I’d left?’

  He looked grimly at her. ‘You might have made me angry enough to behave like a callow boy, Gemma, but I’m not one. Are you all right? Physically, I meant,’ he added bluntly in a softer voice, not allowing her to drag her embarrassed gaze from his.

  ‘Last night. Well, I didn’t realise you were still a virgin. If I had …’

  ‘If you had you wouldn’t have come anywhere near me,’ Gemma supplied tautly. ‘I’m not made of glass, Luke, even if twenty-four is a rather advanced age to … to have sex for the first time.’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ He shot up, and frowned darkly at her. ‘To have sex …’ His mouth twisted. ‘You make it sound like taking nasty medicine, and we both know that it wasn’t like that, don’t we, Gemma?’

  Was she imagining that hint of pleading in his voice? She must be, Gemma reasoned, because there was nothing remotely pleading about the look he was giving her.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  What ridiculous bravado had made her say that?

  ‘Like hell you don’t. You know exactly what I mean. You and I didn’t have sex, Gemma, we gave and took enjoyment and pleasure, in equal measures, and if you try to deny it then I’ll damn well prove to you here and now that you’re lying.’

  Gemma froze. What was he saying?

  Panic flared through her body, and she automatically stepped back from him.

  ‘Luke, I’m leaving … just as soon as a flight can be arranged.’ She couldn’t stay here now. Not now, when he had just shown her how contemptuous of her he was.

  A dark tide of colour ran up under his skin as he came towards her. ‘Running back to Hardman are you, just like you did once before, to show him what you’ve learned in my arms? Of course he’s much more your type than I am, isn’t he, Gemma? Much more acceptable to Mummy and Daddy. I’m good enough to teach you how to use that beautiful body of yours, but I’m not good enough for anything else. Is that it?’

  He was still coming towards her, and Gemma had an insane desire to giggle. It was tension, she told herself, that was all. Luke couldn’t possibly mean what he was saying. He knew that she loved him. Didn’t he? He didn’t look as though he did, Gemma thought wryly. He looked absolutely furious, and … A fine flicker of excitement burned through her veins as she looked at him properly and saw past his anger to the fierce desire glittering in his eyes.

  He wanted her. He still wanted her. She felt her senses catch fire, and murmured his name, but he thought she was denying him and said thickly. ‘Well, perhaps before you go running back to Hardman I’d better just complete your education for you. I’d hate to think I’d missed out on anything,’ he added nastily, desire surmounted by the raging bitterness she saw in his eyes.

  For the first time fear touched her. This wasn’t the Luke she knew and loved. She had to explain.

  ‘Luke, please stop,’ she begged. ‘You don’t understand. You …’

  ‘No, you’re the one who doesn’t understand,’ he corrected harshly. ‘You never have done. Oh, no, Gemma, I’m not letting you walk away from me this time. Before, I had to. Legally you were a child, but now you’re a woman and there’s nothing to stop me from showing you what being a woman is all about.’

  ‘You already have,’ Gemma told him tartly, both angry and afraid. It didn’t help that she knew that she had brought some of his anger down upon her own head, but it was too late to reason and argue. Implacable determination showed in every movement of his supple body. He was stalking her like an animal stalking its prey, she recognised helplessly, measuring the distance to the bathroom door, and knowing she wouldn’t make it.

  ‘Run all you like, Gemma,’ he taunted her. ‘You won’t get very far.’

  He was practically hypnotising her with his eyes. Gemma thought wildly, making it impossible for her to move, to do anything other than stand there trembling like a trapped doe while he came towards her. He reached out and circled one delicate wrist with his fingers, tugging her gently towards him.

  ‘Stop shaking,’ he whispered against her ear. ‘There’s nothing to be frightened of.’

  He was lying. She knew that. Oh he wouldn’t hurt her physically—he wasn’t that sort of man—but emotionally … She was too vulnerable, too deeply in love with him to be able to protect herself against him.

  Perhaps if she told him? But no, she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t betray that final humiliating weakness. Somehow she would just have to find a way of physically resisting him. But how?

  It was a question she was to ask herself over and over again in the moments that followed.

  Luke picked her up and carried her over to the bed, removing her robe before he put her down.

  His own clothes followed it, until her only covering was the hard male warmth of his flesh.

  Against her will, her senses responded to the proximity of him. Her body knew him now which made it all the harder. Her sensitive breasts ached for the pleasure he had given her last night, the deep inner core of her womanhood vibrantly aware of the power and sexuality of him.

  When he touched her, her bones ached, even if he was only gently caressing the inner curve of her wrist as he was doing now. His marauding lips found the spot where her pulse thudded frantically against her skin and she shuddered wildly.

  ‘Feels good, doesn’t it, Gemma,’ Luke whispered against her skin. ‘And I can make you feel even better … like this … and this …’

  His mouth touched the tr
eacherous hidden pleasure spots of her body, making her cry out loud in pleasure.

  ‘Luke!’

  ‘Touch me,’ he incited, his voice a whisper soft against her ear. ‘Touch me, Gemma. Let me show you how good it can be.’

  His hands guided hers over his skin until she was shaking with the wild need that filled her. She bent her head, tasting him, feeling the hard thud of his heart against his ribcage when her mouth caressed the flat button of his nipple.

  ‘Yes … Yes … Yes, Gemma.’ He breathed in harshly, expelling air from his lungs in a raw sound of pleasure as she instinctively obeyed his command. His hand slid into her nape, holding her against his body as she delicately licked and nibbled her way down it until she reached the flat plain of his belly.

  ‘Gemma!’

  Her name seemed to erupt from deep within his chest, his body shuddering, a sheen of fine sweat breaking out on his skin and tasting salt against her lips.

  Her tongue-tip absorbed the tiny beads of moisture with sensual enjoyment. She had forgotten their quarrel, forgotten the harsh critical words he had flung at her.

  His hand swept down over her body, cupping her breast, the texture of his palm deliciously rough against her softer skin. His thumb caressed her nipple with urgency and skill, his hands suddenly reaching beneath her armpits to lift her so that they were face to face.

  ‘Even now, you don’t know what you do to me, do you?’ Luke accused hoarsely, watching the confusion darken her eyes.

  What did he mean? She knew that he was aroused … that he wanted her.

  ‘You want me.’

  He groaned, his head tipping back, revealing the rigid muscles of his throat. His skin was dark from exposure to the sun; she wanted to reach out and place her lips to its warmth.

  ‘I’ve wanted dozens of women, Gemma,’ he told her brutally.

  She flinched back from the cruelty of his words. Why did he have to remind her that to him she was simply one of many women who had passed through his life, or was he simply trying to reinforce the fact that all his relationships were essentially transient; that though he might want her here and now, tomorrow he might not!

  She had thought that she was strong enough to endure the lack of permanency in any relationship they might have, but then she had not realised how deeply physical need could bite into the human psyche. It was like a disease from which there was no true recovery; only, if one was lucky, rare periods of remission.

  ‘Please let me get up, Luke,’ she whispered huskily. ‘I … We … I don’t want you.’

  ‘Liar.’

  The vehemence in his voice surprised her. If she was but one among many, why did he sound so bitterly determined to make her admit that she wanted him? Samantha would be more than willing to take her place, she thought acidly, and no doubt she was a far more accomplished lover than she herself could ever be.

  ‘Luke, please let me go,’ she pleaded again, unprepared for the almost savage movement of his body as it pinned hers to her bed.

  ‘Not this time, Gemma. Not until I’ve imprinted myself soul deep into your consciousness. This time I’m not going to teach you how to give yourself to another man. I’m going to teach you how to give yourself to me.’

  ‘No!’ Her instinctive protest was lost beneath the onslaught of his mouth, not violently as she had dreaded, but persuasively, tormentingly, until she was clinging eagerly to each tantalising movement of those firm lips against her own, aching for a deeper, more prolonged contact, moaning soft and low in her throat until he allowed her to capture and still his mouth’s teasing movements with her own sweetly voluptuous responsiveness.

  Gemma wasn’t even aware of her lips parting, only of the erotic thrust of his tongue within her mouth, mirroring the aroused thrust of movement of his hips against her body.

  She moaned his name against his mouth, arching eagerly against him, whimpering in a mixture of arousal and tension at the intimate contact of flesh against flesh.

  His teeth took tiny bites at the swollen fullness of her mouth, his hands caressing her body.

  ‘I want to taste very silken inch of you like this,’ Luke moaned against her mouth. ‘And I’m going to teach you to want to do the same to me.’

  He didn’t need to teach her; she was already aching to do so. Luke seemed to have released a deep vein of sexuality within her that no other man had ever come near touching.

  His lips traced the line of her collarbone, and moved down over her body, feathering between her breasts and then moving with tantalising slowness over their swollen curves.

  She cried out at the sensations caused by the fierce sucking movement of his mouth against her sensitive nipples, but when he stopped she ached for him to continue the erotic caress.

  Already, shamingly, her body was melting in anticipation of the intimate caresses he had bestowed on it before; already she was longing to caress him with the same intimacy, eager to learn everything about him that he wanted to teach her, overwhelmed by the flood of love and desire that poured through her, obliterating all restraints.

  Her hands stroked tremulously over his skin, registering with joy his reaction to her touch. Passionately she touched her mouth to the hard flatness of his stomach.

  ‘Gemma, for God’s sake …’

  ‘Don’t you want me to?’ Her mouth trembled as she looked into his eyes and saw the fierce surge of desire darken them. This was something he didn’t need to teach her, something so known and instinctive that her senses could already feel his desire for the most intimate of all caresses.

  ‘I want to,’ she whispered softly, and she saw in his eyes that she was offering him a temptation he could not resist.

  Joy sang within her that she was after all able to overcome his own constraints, and as she bent her head to the taut maleness of him, she heard him cry out her name in a wild, hoarse voice edged with both delight and despair.

  After that, time and reality ceased to exist. She knew that Luke lifted her and put her down on the bed, his hands and mouth caressing every pulsating inch of her body before he finally possessed her. She knew that there was a wildness, a ferocity almost, about their coming together that made it the most exquisite of pleasures; almost too exquisite to bear.

  To come down from such heights, even if she was still held close to Luke’s body, was too painful for stoicism and she could feel the moisture of her tears on her skin.

  Luke felt them, too, his head turning and lifting, his forehand creasing in a frown, his eyes brooding and sombre as they studied her.

  ‘Oh God, Gemma. I’m sorry … I’m sorry.’ He cradled her against his body, rocking her as though she was a child, husky words of apology filling the air.

  ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you, my darling. I didn’t mean it to hurt. You just drove me beyond the limits of my control. You always have. I’m sorry, so sorry … But I’ve wanted you for so long. Loved you for so long.’

  He felt her tension and moved her head from his shoulder so that he could look into her eyes.

  ‘You love me?’ Gemma demanded shakily.

  He grimaced bitterly. ‘Didn’t you guess? I don’t normally go out of control in a woman’s arms. Or did you think my response was the norm? Don’t worry. I doubt that your polite, well-bred Tom Hardman will ever treat you like that.’ His voice was bitter now, but this time with a bitterness that Gemma could recognise. Luke was jealous. Jealous of Tom.

  ‘Well, didn’t you guess?’ he pressed tautly. ‘God knows, I’ve made it obvious enough.

  ‘Not to me,’ Gemma told him gently. ‘You see, I’ve been far too busy hoping that you wouldn’t guess how deeply I’ve fallen in love with you to query your feelings.’

  There was a silence that seemed to stretch for ever, when Gemma began to wonder if she had perhaps misunderstood after all, but it was too late to call back her own admission now. She closed her eyes in mute desperation, and then opened them again. Luke was staring at her.

  ‘Just run that by me again, wi
ll you?’ he demanded roughly.

  ‘Which bit?’ Although she tried to control it, her voice wobbled alarmingly.

  ‘The bit about loving me.’

  ‘I love you, Luke,’ she told him softly. ‘Perhaps in a way I always have. I know that I found that first kiss of Tom’s bitterly disappointing. It was nothing like as exciting as being kissed by you. With hindsight I suspect that you spoiled me for other men,’ she added ruefully. ‘But you were my friend, and that was how I saw you. I was too innocent to know that friends make the very best kind of lovers.’

  ‘Lovers?’ He was frowning again, his eyes guarded.

  ‘I … I know how you feel about making a commitment, Luke. I do understand. I promise you that when the time comes …’

  ‘You’ll what? Give me notice in writing that you’re tired of me?’

  She was so shocked that for a moment she could only stare at him. When she did speak, her voice was thready with disbelief.

  ‘Luke, you’re the one who’ll get tired of me,’ she protested huskily. ‘That’s what I was just trying to tell you. That I understand that you don’t want a permanent relationship. That …’

  ‘You understand nothing,’ he told her thickly. ‘For heaven’s sake, Gemma, what on earth gave you that idea? Or is it just an excuse,’ he demanded tautly. ‘Am I still not good enough for you?’

  ‘You not good enough for me?’ Her shock showed. ‘Luke, you know I’ve never felt like that.’

  ‘Don’t you? Then why all this talk about us not having a permanent relationship?’

  ‘Not because I don’t want one,’ Gemma told him curtly. ‘You’re the one who doesn’t want to tie himself down to one woman, or so I’ve heard. Everyone I meet tells me how much you like your freedom.’

  ‘Ah.’ Suddenly his face cleared, a mischievous smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. ‘And shall I tell you why? Because I’m still too much in love with a girl I met when I was barely twenty years old.’

  It took a while for his meaning to sink in. ‘That can’t be true.’ Her shock showed in her voice.