The blood singing in her ears made her vision blur. 'Let me go, Luke.' The appeal, the panic, were clear in each syllable. How easy it was for him to send her spiralling out of control; how he must be laughing, she thought, bitterly angry at her inability to carry off the situation. His eyes weren't laughing, though, when she blinked to clear her vision and his lean frame seemed taut with the same tension that was making her tremble. 'Forget this whole stupid idea. Dad would never believe we slept together… I was just a child.'
'Sixteen is no child, at least not for the purposes we're dealing with. And I am the Antichrist in your family's eyes, capable of any infamy.' He gave a hard laugh. 'In your eyes too,' he added with biting irony. 'I think I'm capable of convincing Charlie that you were a very willing victim, Emmy, and you know it.'
He had her cornered and he knew it. 'Don't do that,' she pleaded huskily as he steepled his fingers and allowed his intense stare to rest unblinkingly on her face.
'What?'
'Look at me like…that.' He was being so cruel, and yet he could make her ache with unfulfilled desire, a consuming yearning. She felt the blood run hot beneath her skin as she shivered in helpless response.
'You're a beautiful woman; I would have thought you could take it in your stride by now.'
'Am I supposed to be flattered by that comment?' she asked derisively. 'I can see you think of me as some sort of trophy.' Nothing else, unfortunately, explained his persistence. She despised herself for wistfully imagining what it would be like if his motivations were not inspired by vengeance. 'A Stapely, a notch on the bedpost. You're an attractive man and my ego has taken a battering, but I'm not stupid enough to be a willing pawn in your sick game. If you wait for me to do the asking, you'll wait forever,' she gasped huskily.
She wanted to make him angry, but not angry enough to push the issue. Her voice sounded cold, like the sweat that bathed her body. She couldn't let him know how easily she could succumb to the love which drew her to him despite the objections of the small, still sane portion of her brain. A portion that he could make mute with a single touch… He couldn't know. She knew, though, and despised herself for this fatal weakness.
'Get a kick from self-denial, do you, Em?' His derision was apparent. His whole attitude betrayed the fact that he had no appetite for self-denial himself.
Why had she never seen past the sleek, urbane exterior and realised earlier the danger he represented? Here was a man who could dodge shell-fire and not by so much as a blink give away the fact that he wasn't comfortably seated in a studio. The toughness, the determination went bone-deep, as did the cynicism. The nature of his role in the media meant that he was constantly bombarded with the very worst of human suffering and inhumanity. He'd told her he had seen wickedness and felt nothing, a spiritual numbness she couldn't believe, having read his work a few hours earlier. Through the words ran a surprising thread of idealism that shone through at unexpected moments from the corrosive cynicism, as if the two fought a constant battle.
The blue eyes were anything but passive at the moment. She found her stomach doing painful contortions as she met his gaze. 'I'm all for anticipation, prolonging the relish, but you can take that too far.'
'How many times do I have to say it, Luke? I don't want to sleep with you!' she cried, defying the deep instinct to reach out, be submerged by the fleeting passion he felt, and forget that he only despised her. Hadn't he told her as much? She was helpless to prevent the electrical surge that began as a gentle tingling beneath her skin, and grew, exploded into arrows of molten pain…desire. She tried to think past the demands of her body; even without the feud things were hopeless; their lives were poles apart. 'I'm particular about whom I make love with, and to be quite frank I find all of this quite sordid,' she said frigidly, and beneath the table her knees shook.
'Sordid?' Soft and purring, his tone spelt danger. Luke was angry; in fact he was furious. She could see the thin white bloodless line that outlined his compressed lips. A nerve leapt erratically in his lean cheek, and his eyes shot blue wrath.
'We're related,' she responded, feeling cornered by the disproportionate response.
His eyebrows rose sarcastically. 'Our parents were cousins only because my mother was adopted. We are related on paper, not by blood. I think you can rule out incest in whatever culture you care to align yourself with.'
'This is pointless,' she muttered, rising. 'I don't have to have a note to excuse me just because I don't want to go to bed with you. You might blackmail me into marriage, but I'll despise you with all my heart.' She gave a muttered expletive as her sleeve caught the coffee-pot, disgorging the contents over her hand. The pain helped her concentrate her wits. 'Don't touch me!' she yelped shrilly as he made a move towards her. One step hearer, and a word of concern, and she'd be lost…