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‘I don’t even known your name,’ he said when he finally closed the hotel room door, neither of them having said a word as she had led him swiftly down two blocks and into the foyer of a small but surprisingly elegant hotel. Not at all the sort of place for a cheap rendezvous.
The lift-ride up to the third floor had been tense, the presence of another man in the lift stifling any conversation or physical contact. Luke had hardly been aware of his surroundings as he’d eagerly followed her down the corridor. He had absorbed little but a brief impression of red-patterned carpet and black and white prints of ships on the walls.
‘My name?’ she repeated, almost as though she were in a fog.
He liked her disorientation, liked the way she gasped when he pulled her abruptly into his arms. ‘Never mind,’ he growled. ‘No names for tonight. We’ll exchange names in the morning.’
He kissed her again before the fog could lift.
God, but he liked the woman his kisses turned her into, liked the sounds she made under them, liked the feel of her lips melting along with her body. He’d never known a woman become so pliant in his arms before. Her sweet surrender to his mouth and hands filled him with the heady power to do as he pleased with her.
He pleased to take off all her clothes. What little there was of them.
He pleased to carry her over to the king-sized bed and stretch her, seemingly dazed, out on top of it.
He certainly pleased to sit beside her gloriously naked body and touch her all over... at will... and very, very thoroughly.
She didn’t stop him, merely gazed up at him all the while with glazed green eyes, her lush lips gasping apart occasionally. Her pleasure was obvious, as was a bewildering amount of surprise. Hadn’t she expected to enjoy his touch so much? Or was it that she wasn’t used to a man giving her pleasure first this way?
She was getting close, he knew; her thighs were beginning to tremble. When her back began to arch from the bed he stopped abruptly, and she moaned her frustration.
It was only when Luke stood up that he realised his breathing was as hard and fast as hers. God, he hadn’t been this excited in years, he realised. Or this enthralled with a woman. Stripped of those sluttish clothes, she had taken on a totally different persona. There was nothing cheap about her any more. She was all classical curves and sweetly fragrant beauty. She was even a genuine blonde!
He couldn’t wait to bury himself in those softly golden curls, to have those lovely long legs wrapped tightly around him, to see those lush lips form a gasping O at the moment of her orgasm.
Funny, he had no conscious thought of his own satisfaction—which was a first for him. In the past, his priority when making love to a woman had always been what he would get out of it.
But not this time. This time he wanted to give even more than to receive.
Luke hardly recognised the man he’d become since entering this room. He felt all-powerful, yet that power was tempered with a strange tenderness. If he hadn’t known better, he might have thought he’d finally really fallen in love. Even if not, it was certainly an experience outside his normal realm of experiences.
He could not even remember the first time he’d made love to Tracy, though he’d fancied himself in love with her back then. Yet already he knew he would never forget this night, not as long as he lived.
‘You haven’t done this before, have you?’ he remarked as he began undressing himself, slipping out of his jacket and draping it over one of the bedposts.
She licked her lips, her eyes wide upon his. ‘Why do you say that?’ Her voice was husky, as though desire had dried her mouth and throat. But not the rest of her. The rest of her was far from dry, he recalled, with a lurching in his stomach.
‘You seem too nervous.’
‘I’m no virgin,’ she protested, though shakily.
‘I never said you were.’ But her gaze was definitely close to virginal as it clung to his half-naked body.
Luke found her mixture of fascination and fear a real turn-on. He knew he had a good body, knew it was well equipped to satisfy most women’s fantasies. So there was no hesitation when he finally stripped off his underwear. He actually saw the swallowing action in her throat, and revelled in her reaction.
‘Where have you put the condoms?’ he said as he joined her on the bed, running a gently caressing hand down her body as he did so.
She quivered uncontrollably and closed her eyes.
‘Hey,’ he prompted, quietly but firmly. ‘The condoms?’
Long lashes fluttered open; the green eyes were pained. ‘Oh, God,’ she groaned, shaking her head from side to side. ‘I didn’t think. I just didn’t think.’
Her distress touched him, despite his flash of annoyance at her naivety. He would have to make sure that she never did insane things like this again. There again, she wasn’t going to have any lovers other than him after tonight. He was going to make sure of that. Come morning, there would be no more of this ‘stranger’ nonsense.
‘It’s all right,’ he reassured her, trying not to sound irritated. ‘I always keep one in my wallet.’
And that was what was annoying him. One. Only one! They would need more than one before this night was out. He tossed up between dressing now and finding a twenty-four-hour chemist or doing it later.
Later, his intense desire told him. Much later.
He could not wait another minute. Or even another moment.
‘No!’ she cried out when he swung his legs over onto the floor.
His glance over his shoulder carried impatience and puzzlement. ‘No, what?’
‘No, I can’t,’ she rasped. ‘I can’t...’
Luke had no intention of letting her change her mind at this point. It was beyond bearing just thinking about it.
‘It’s all right,’ he murmured, turning back to cup her face with firm hands and stare deep into her anguished green eyes. ‘I understand. You’ve only just realised what a very silly girl you’ve been tonight. But I’m a good guy. Really. I won’t hurt you, loveliness. I’m going to make beautiful love to you,’ he promised, pressing her back against the pillow and kissing her.
He kept on kissing her till she began clinging to him and squirming with renewed desire. But he didn’t dare leave her even then, reinforcing his temporary triumph by sliding down her body and kissing her all over till she was beyond stopping him, even when he had to abandon her for a short while.
She reached for him when he returned to the bed, pulling him down on top of her and not letting him indulge in any further foreplay. By this time Luke was ready to explode anyway, so when she opened to him, winding her legs high around his back, there really wasn’t any option.
He drove deep into her hot, honeyed flesh, shuddering with pleasure at her exquisite tightness. He’d barely moved within her when her first fierce contraction seized his flesh, and it was all too much. He could not hold back another second, tremors racking his body as he climaxed uncontrollably, his spasms totally in tune with hers, going on and on for simply ages.
At last it was over, and he sank down upon her, feeling sated with pleasure. Yet even in the aftermath there was more pleasure, a sweet intimacy rising between them as her arms stole around him then squeezed, holding him tightly to her flattened breasts. His lips nuzzled her left ear and she sighed her satisfaction with him. He felt deliciously loved and loving, every limb and muscle flooded with a warm and wondrous peace.
He never wanted to leave her, but he had to in the end, though he returned from the en suite bathroom as quickly as possible. He began to see what the Bible meant about man and woman cleaving together to make one flesh. He felt only half a man away from her, already addicted to the feelings she evoked in him.
She was lying on her side watching him as he came back into the room, her position showing the delicious female curve of waist, hip and leg. Her breasts looked swollen, he noted, her nipples still hard, and her eyes were heavy-lidded and incredibly sensuous as they travelled slowly down his body.
His heart kicked over when her gaze drifted down past his navel, having an immediate effect on his till then flaccid flesh. The thought hit him immediately then he should dress and go in search of that chemist before another moment passed, but then she smiled that siren’s smile at him and stretched out a beckoning hand. She drew him down onto the bed beside her and began to caress him with that hand, bringing him to full erection within an amazingly short time.
Transfixed by this sudden reversal of roles, Luke simply lay there, stunned and speechless as she continued to kiss and caress every inch of his body. There was nothing even remotely virginal about her now; everything she did was designed to tantalise and torment him to the point of no return, yet without granting him release.
He knew the enveloping heat of her mouth, the flickering torture of her tongue, the teasing touch of fingers which knew exactly what to do to drive him mad then stop him in midstream.
He tried closing his eyes against the sensations growing within him, and it proved to be a disastrous mistake. For during those seconds of desperate darkness she moved to straddle his hips, taking the full length of his pained hardness deep within her. His eyes flung open on a raw cry of panic, but already she was riding him, green eyes glittering wildly.
‘No,’ he groaned. But weakly. Pathetically.
‘Yes,’ she hissed back. ‘Yes...’
His hands found her hips, and he should have heaved her from his body. Instead he gripped her flesh and urged her on to a stronger, faster rhythm. His own hips began to rise and fall, and it felt incredible.
God, but she was so hot in there. So hot. He could feel his own blood heating even further, racing along his veins like molten lava. The volcano of his desire would not be contained this time. Or controlled. It surged higher and higher with each drumbeat of his madly pounding heart, and then it was erupting, flooding into the already spasming heart of her womanhood, dredging raw groans from his parched and panting lungs.
When the climax had passed, he reached up to bring her down so that he could kiss her, wanting to feel the heat of her mouth as well.
He was startled to encounter the wetness of tears running into the corners. He didn’t know what to say; could think of nothing but to cradle her close, to stroke her back and say whatever came to mind.
‘Don’t cry, darling. Please don’t cry. God, but I can’t bear it. Hush, sweetness. There’s nothing to worry about. Nothing. As I said before, I’m a good guy. And I can see you’re a good girl. We’re good people. Hush, my loveliness. Hush. Go to sleep, there’s a good girl. Yes, that’s it. Go to sleep.’
They both went to sleep... eventually... though Luke took quite a while to come to terms with what had just happened. He hoped he was right. Hoped that she was a good girl. If not, he’d just done the stupidest damned thing he’d ever done in his whole life. Slept with a perfect stranger. Without protection. Then, to top it all off, he’d fallen in love with her...
‘All finished, Mr St Clair.’ The chair snapped upright and the nurse moved to unclip the paper bib around his neck.
Luke’s black eyes blinked open to stare blankly into her smiling face. His gaze went to the clock on the wall. Eleven-fifteen. He’d been at the dentist over half an hour and he hadn’t felt a thing! Unless one counted what had been going on within his head. And his heart.
An impotent rage simmered beneath the cool façade he presented to the dentist and his nurse as he thanked them and said goodbye, and then to the receptionist as he paid his bill. In cash.
‘I hope you enjoy your stay here in Australia, Mr St Clair,’ she said, reminding him that he still sounded like an American.
‘I’m sure I will,’ he returned, trying to keep the grim satisfaction out of his voice. ‘Enjoy’ was probably not the right word, but he had no doubt that this visit was going to be memorable. At last he had a name to put to his obsession. A name and a past. He would leave no stone unturned till he came face to face with the woman who’d haunted him all these months.
And when he did?
God only knew what he was going to do. Be cause he didn’t.
‘Would you mind if I took one of those old magazines with me?’ he asked the receptionist. ‘It has a picture in it of an old friend of mine.’
‘Take it, by all means.’ And me too if you like, her eyes seemed to be telling him.
Unfaithful bitch, he thought as he strode over to the corner table. They were probably all unfaithful bitches, all the beautiful women in this world.
He snatched up the magazine in question, not giving the girl a second glance as he stuffed it under his arm and strode angrily from the room.
CHAPTER THREE
HIS mother was waiting for him in the coffee-lounge, a cup of capuccino in front of her, a jam and cream doughnut to her left, a newspaper to her right and a plastic shopping bag at her feet. She shut the newspaper on Luke’s approach and folded it, frowning up at him as he scraped out the chair and sat down.
‘What’s wrong with you now?’ she said. ‘Couldn’t you get your tooth fixed?’
He resisted the urge to scowl. Five minutes he’d give her, then he’d be off in a taxi to the nearby airport, where he would rent a decent car. He needed his own wheels. And the privacy that went with them.
‘There’s nothing wrong with me,’ he said. ‘I’m fine. My tooth’s fine. The weather’s fine. Life’s fine.’
‘Then why are you still in such a foul mood?’
‘Lord, what is it with you? Do you have some special mother’s antenna that can pick up my mood at twenty paces? I’ve just walked in and sat down. How could you possibly gauge my mood? I hadn’t even spoken when you made your instant judgement.’
‘You were walking cranky,’ came her simplistic but accurate observation.
He couldn’t help it. He had to laugh. There was no hiding anything from his mother. Which reminded him. He slipped the magazine from under his arm onto a spare chair and thought of something to say to distract her.
‘Tell me, Mum. Were you ever unfaithful to Dad?’
‘Heavens to Betsy! What a question!’
‘That’s no answer. That’s an evasion.’
‘I needed a moment to catch my breath. Might I ask what’s brought such a question on?’
‘Well, you’re a good-looking woman. From photographs I’ve seen when Dad married you forty-five years ago you were pretty stunning. Stunning women have temptation put in their way, whether they’re married or not.’
Grace wondered which stunning married woman her son had been getting mixed up with, but tactfully refrained from asking. This time.
‘I won’t say I didn’t have my offers,’ she answered truthfully. ‘And I won’t say I wasn’t tempted, once or twice. But I managed to stay faithful to your father. Technically speaking, that is.’
Luke blinked his shock at her. ‘Technically speaking?’ he repeated rather dazedly. ‘What do you mean... “technically speaking”?’
‘Well, I did let a man kiss me once for a few seconds longer than I should have.’
‘Oh, is that all?’
‘I thought it was pretty terrible of me at the time. But he was awfully good-looking. And very charming. I was flattered to death that he fancied me. He was only in his early thirties and I was a silly forty-one at the time, thinking I was over the hill and desperate for some attention. He gave me some.’
‘And would have given you a whole lot more if you’d let him,’ Luke said drily. ‘Who was he, this Casanova?’
‘No one you ever met. He was Danish, visiting Sydney one summer. Your father met him down the local pub and was silly enough to invite him home for supper one night.’
‘And you let him kiss you that very same night?’ Luke could not contain his surprise.
A small blush of guilt stained his mother’s normally pale cheeks. ‘As I said,’ she muttered, ‘he was very charming.’
‘So how did it happen? And where was Dad, damn him?’
‘Watching TV, as usual. Eric offered to help me with the washing-up, and he sort of cornered me against the kitchen sink. At first I was shocked. But when he started kissing me, I have to admit I liked it. Oh, I stopped him before things went too far, but after he left I thought about him a lot. I knew which hotel he was staying at—since he’d made a point of telling me—and I actually rang his room one day. But when he answered I panicked and hung up.’
‘I see...’
‘Do you, Luke? I doubt it. I loved your father, and he was a good lover when he was younger. But time and familiarity can do dreadful things in the bedroom. Boredom sets in, and your father did work terribly hard. Most nights he was too tired. Our sex life had deteriorated to a quickie once or twice a month, and I was silly enough not to know what to do about it. So, of course, I was a ready victim for the likes of Eric, who really was a sleazebag of the first order.’
Luke frowned at his mother. ‘You’re not lying to me, are you, Mum? You didn’t really go with him, did you?’
‘Of course not! I went out and bought myself a sexy black nightie and started doing a few of those things I’d only ever read about in books before. Things really looked up after that.’
‘Mum! I’m shocked,’ he said, then grinned at her. ‘You devil, you.’
She blushed some more, though she did look rather pleased with herself. He felt inordinately proud of her at that moment. She’d been handed temptation on a plate, when his dad had foolishly been neglecting her, but her essential goodness had come through in the end.
Luke’s mouth thinned as he accepted that not all women were as strong, or as decent. Some were weak, self-centred creatures, who went out and took what they wanted, and to hell with the people they hurt in the process.
A waiter appeared by the table and asked Luke if he wanted to order. He declined, giving the excuse that his mouth still felt numb from the injection he’d had—which was true—but the real reason was that he could not stand to sit there any longer. He had places to go. Leads to follow. A woman to find.
