'Dream on,' she sneered. It was a part of the truth, she realised with horror. How long had she been subconsciously holding herself back from involvement, waiting?
'You say sex as though it's sordid, unclean; I think, with us, sex could be quite beautiful,' he said throatily, his eyes fixed hungrily on her frozen countenance. 'What are you afraid of, Emmy?'
'I'm a Stapely,' she reminded him hoarsely. His voice, his delicious rough velvet drawl, was teasing the aching hunger into full flowering life.
'I don't need reminding,' he said jerkily as she licked her dry lips with the tip of her tongue. The atmosphere in the room was electric.
'Why are you crying? Is it your arm hurting?' he asked. The concern was masked by a rough, impatient tone, but she could hear it lapping the edges of his voice. He took a step towards her and his thumb stroked the downward path of a tear.
'No, the pain-killers are working,' she said swiftly, silently cursing her inability to lie conveniently. The next obvious question could have been avoided. She awaited the inevitable, her mind already searching for a reasonable reply.
'Why the tears?' A finger this time traced the downward course of a single salty droplet. She let out a cry of protest, which he ignored. She instinctively lifted her arms to cover her face, afraid of the emotion spilling out of her.
'Turn it out,' she pleaded huskily, indicating the lamp. She was still quivering from the simple impersonal contact of one finger tip. God only knew what he'd see in her face, her eyes.
'I don't want you to hide in the darkness, Emmy, not from me, not tonight.'
Something in his voice, the sensuous yearning, the raw unrefined quality, made her tightly shut eyes flicker open. His face, the taut, rigid lines, the burning, almost feverish glow in his azure gaze toppled her off the precarious emotional tightrope she'd been walking these past two days. She didn't have the mental reserves or the desire to fight the prowling hunger that stalked her waking and sleeping moments. Right now, Luke wanted her; and she had to accept that that was all he had to offer.
Perhaps the pain is part of it, she thought, reaching out with a trembling hand to touch his jaw, rough with a dark shadow that grated across her fingertips. 'Luke?' She felt the violent shudder that ran through his body.
'Do you know what you're doing to me, woman?' he asked, none of the skilled negotiator of obstacles in his voice now; it was raw, needy.
It was the need that pushed her past her limit of endurance. She made a soft sound in her throat and walked into his open arms. They closed around her like steel bands, and together they fell on to the tumbled bedclothes.
'Please, Luke, I want you,' she gasped, feeling transformed by her sudden surrender to the torrent of emotional and physical cravings. He was supporting his upper body weight over her, close but not touching. She felt that she should say something more articulate about her need, her surrender to that need, but her throat closed over raw emotion. She felt a sudden surge of panic at his lack of response; she'd mistaken the moment. Mortification made her grow cold. Only the sudden weight of Luke's body stopped her turning sinuously away. She began to struggle regardless.
'Stop it, you little fool.' His voice was close to her ear, she could feel the warmth of his breath on her neck, hear the harsh tone of his breath. His hands bunched in her hair, immobilising her head, forcing her to look into his face. 'What the hell do you think I'm going to do?' he demanded savagely.
'I made a mistake.' She couldn't. He was using her. Being held so close, so intimately that she couldn't begin to…
His mouth on her face, neck, the upper slope of her breasts was a breathless, compelling seduction of her senses. She felt weak, compliant, aching with the need for fulfilment.
'Luke…?' His eyes never left her face as he removed the single garment she wore. The blaze of raw, unvarnished passion in his eyes was a revelation.
'I want to watch you while I make love to you,' he murmured huskily, one hand running the length of her from the delicate curve of her collarbone to the quivering smoothness of her thigh, where it came to rest possessively. The sight of his hand against her own flesh was indescribably erotic. She wondered how every slight movement could be so arousing, so exciting. A slow-burning fuse had exploded in her brain into incandescence.
He caressed her body with an agonising patience, precision, as if memorising each feminine dip and curve. He contemplated the full mounds of pink-tipped flesh, feasting himself on the feel and taste of her, following the blue-veined tracery and the swollen ruched peaks until she cried hoarsely in protest.
In the thick, voluptuous silence their eyes met. He was panting as hard as she was as she slowly and deliberately allowed her fingers to glide provocatively over sweat-slicked skin. Tentatively almost, she slid lower across his flat belly, letting her lips and tongue revel in the taste and scent of him. The raw, elemental sound that was ripped from his throat touched something primitive within her, and her nails bit into his flesh as her teeth grazed the flatness of his nipple.