by Abby Green
Sweat broke out on her brow as she fought back the wave of nausea. Blood had always sickened her. Ever since she’d seen her own blood running on the floor from the welts on her back and legs.
Seriously weak now, Jesse’s legs were trembling violently. She felt rather than saw Luc cast her a swift glance.
‘What’s wrong with you? It’s only a small nick.’
Jesse’s tongue felt heavy in her head. ‘The blood. I can’t stand blood.’
Her legs gave way just as she heard Luc curse, and then she was being lifted against his hard chest and put down on a chair. His hand was on the back of her head, pushing it between her knees.
‘Just breathe,’ was his curt instruction.
She could feel him doing something to her thumb, wrapping something around it. Slowly the nausea was receding and her stomach was calming down.
She felt him move away from her and attempted to come back up, but he said roughly, ‘Stay down until I say so or you’ll get dizzy again.’
Jesse said nothing, just obeyed, too mortified to come up, too afraid to see what would be on Luc’s face at her pathetic weakness. She couldn’t cut a slice of bread without nearly cutting a finger off, and then she almost fainted. And, not only that, she was terrified of the response that had swept through her like a forest fire at being held so closely to his body as he’d all but carried her to the chair.
Eventually she saw his bare feet appear in her line of vision and heard something being put on the table behind her. She felt his hands on her arms and she was urged upwards. Her head swam for a moment, but then it cleared. Luc was looking down at her, his eyes searching her face.
Jesse could feel heat and colour rushing back. As if satisfied to see it, Luc propelled her chair around and she saw a plate with what looked like a steak sandwich on it and a glass of water.
Luc sat down on the chair nearest to her and motioned to her. ‘Go on—eat. You need something in your belly.’
Jesse saw then that a plaster had been put on her thumb. It was throbbing a little, but there was no sight of blood, thank God.
She looked from the sandwich to Luc. ‘I … I’m sorry. I don’t know what …’
‘Just eat.’
His voice was disarmingly gentle, doing funny things to her insides as she picked up the sandwich and took a bite. She nearly closed her eyes as the delicious taste of the meat hit her tastebuds. She’d never tasted anything so succulent and tender. She demolished it all in record time, and took a long sip of water before wiping her mouth with a napkin.
Luc was watching her with a slightly mesmerised look on his face. He shook his head. ‘For someone so tiny you could put a mariner to shame, the way you eat.’
Jesse flushed and said, ‘Just because I don’t cook much for myself doesn’t mean I don’t have an appetite.’
Luc felt the slow lick of desire as he found himself wondering if Jesse’s ravenous appetite ran to the more carnal kind. He watched her face and could see expressions flit across it like clouds scudding across a bay in high wind. Did she realise how transparent she was? Unless, of course, he mentioned a verboten subject like her father.
He was finding her more and more intriguing, and he was finding it difficult to focus on the fact that because of her his years of well-laid plans would all be for naught.
As if she could feel his intense regard, Jesse got up abruptly and took her things to the sink. Luc saw her hesitate for a second, as if afraid in case she saw blood again, but he’d been careful to wash it all away.
He didn’t like the way his heart constricted slightly now. The line of her back looked incredibly delicate, and his eye travelled down over that T-shirt and the shorts she’d changed into during the afternoon. Her legs were smooth and pale. So slender he imagined wrapping a hand around one calf. And then he noticed something else: a long silvery line down one thigh that reached to the back of her knee, like a faded scar.
Just then Jesse turned, and he looked back up. Her face was a bland mask, and Luc held his tongue when what he wanted was to ask her about the scar. She’d retreated into her cool shell, and he had to curb the desire to stand up and walk over to her and kiss her.
He was disconcerted to find that as much as he wanted to do it to unsettle her, with a view to getting off this island, he also wanted to do it just for the sake of doing it.
Unwilling to explore this unwelcome desire, Luc stood up. His mood wasn’t helped by the way Jesse’s eyes widened fractionally, showing more of that dark grey intensity. Saying something vaguely coherent, Luc made for the door.
He stopped when he heard a tentative-sounding, ‘Luc?’ He realised that it was the first time she’d said his first name out loud.
Feeling more and more threatened, he forced himself to turn around. He saw Jesse biting her lip before blurting out, ‘Thank you …’
‘It was nothing.’ His voice was gruff. Disgusted, because he felt as if he was running away, he left and went to the sanctuary of his room.
Jesse sank back against the sink and looked at the empty doorway. Luc Sanchis had just been incredibly sweet to her. Since her mother died, she couldn’t recall anyone being so nice to her—even making her a sandwich like that and sitting there till she ate it. In all of her foster homes invariably the parents had had children of their own, and more often than not had been stressed and busy. Jesse had often wondered why they’d bothered taking kids in when they couldn’t seem to care for them properly …
Damn him, Jesse said to herself silently. She didn’t want to like him. At all. She shook her head and made quick work of washing the plates—hers and Luc’s—being careful to keep her thumb out of the water.
When she was finished she glanced at her watch and was surprised to see that it was already after ten p.m. A wave of tiredness washed over her, but Jesse felt the habitual frustration of an insomniac. If she went to bed now she would only wake in a couple of hours, and not get back to sleep until dawn.
Instead Jesse found herself searching through the DVDs in the den, and smiled when she found some computer games which she figured belonged to the Kouros children. Jesse recalled Alexandros telling her with a wry grin that their lives were dominated by their three boys. She gave thanks for their taste in games now, and settled down to play one of her old favourites.
When Luc had got back to his room he’d taken a shower and now lay on his bed in nothing but a towel. He tried to resist, but couldn’t: the memory of how Jesse had felt leaning against him when she’d been overcome with weakness at the sight of the blood.
Her reaction had shocked him. She’d been so strong all along, despite the small signs of nerves and that damned air of vulnerability.
He could still feel the impression of her small firm breasts. When he’d helped her to sit up straight again he’d been able to see down the loose top of her shirt to the dewy skin of her cleavage. Her breasts had looked enticingly more full than he’d thought. And he’d felt like a teenager ogling his first woman.
He clenched his hands against the erection already growing and gritted his teeth. The first twenty-four-hour stretch of his incarceration had proved to him that this sexual awareness and frustration would only build. He was sure that it was heightened by the fact that Jesse was not his usual type, and further heightened by their enforced close proximity.
In normal circumstances he wouldn’t find her so enthralling. But for now he did. And it would help him to achieve his aim. He would seduce her into revealing the secrets she hid in those flashing grey eyes. And then, when she was at her most vulnerable, he would have her and she wouldn’t be able to deny him anything. Namely: his freedom.
When Luc woke around dawn he was still in the towel on the top of his bed. He was surprised as he had become accustomed to existing on three to four hours’ sleep.
He had another quick shower and, feeling ridiculously refreshed, pulled on jeans from yesterday and a clean T-shirt, scowling at the open doors of the walk-in closet as he did so.
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He’d never had a woman buy him clothes before. He’d bought plenty of clothes and jewellery for women, though, and had to wonder now why they liked it so much when it made him feel somehow soiled. He reflected with not a little irony that the women he lavished gifts on didn’t give any impression of feeling soiled, and yet he could well imagine the distasteful look on Jesse Moriarty’s face if he did such a thing … and he didn’t like how that knowledge made him feel.
He closed the offending doors and padded downstairs in bare feet to the kitchen. He had to admit that under other circumstances he would properly enjoy this villa and the solitude. It was just unfortunate that he was confined within its perimeter fence and cut off from his life and livelihood.
Luc had almost walked past the den before he saw the small foot dangling off the sofa.
He stopped and went in, to see Jesse lying awkwardly on the couch, half-on and half-off, with earphones askew on her head. There was a console remote on the floor near her, and the TV was showing nothing but static.
Something within him moved at the sight of her, all tousled and sleep-flushed, her mouth in a delicious pout. Her T-shirt had ridden up to reveal a pale and very flat belly, her shorts sat low on slim hips.
He reached down and plucked the earphones off her ears. Jesse moved fractionally, whispering something under her breath that Luc couldn’t quite catch. Before he’d really thought about what he was doing he’d slipped his arms under her, one under her back and the other under her legs, and lifted her against his chest.
Jesse was aware that she felt weightless against something hard, and that it wasn’t an altogether unpleasant sensation. And then she became aware of more: a hard chest under her cheek, and someone’s warm and minty-smelling breath on her forehead. Groggily she opened her eyes, to see that she was several feet off the ground and in Luc Sanchis’s arms. She started to struggle, but it was ineffectual because she was still half asleep.
‘Hold still. I’m just taking you up to your bed.’
His voice rumbled out from that chest, covered by only a flimsy T-shirt and Jesse was wide awake and as stiff as a board by the time Luc walked her into her room and deposited her on her bed. To her dismay he didn’t back away. He rested over her on his hands, the muscles in his arms far too close for comfort. As well as that huge body.
‘I … Thank you. I must have fallen asleep.’ Her voice sounded ridiculously husky to her ears.
Please move away from me, she begged silently, terrified of her body’s response, which seemed to be worse because she hadn’t yet woken up enough to censor it. That had to be why she wanted to reach out and curl her hands into the material of Luc’s T-shirt and pull him closer so that she could—
As if hearing her chaotic thoughts, Luc did move closer then—and Jesse had nowhere to go as she was almost flat on the bed. Breathless, she asked, ‘What are you doing?’
Half-musingly he said, ‘Just checking something.’
And then he was dropping, coming closer, even though not a part of his body was actually touching hers yet. His face came so close to hers that it blurred in her eyesight and Jesse had to close her eyes. But that was worse because then she could smell him.
She was acutely aware of the fact that she was lying on her bed, with Luc Sanchis looming over her like a marauding pirate about to ravish her. And there was nothing she could do because she seemed to have been invaded by some fatal lethargy.
She felt the barest of touches, of his mouth to the corner of hers, before he moved down across the line of her jaw, and down again to where she knew her pulse must be beating hectically at her neck, betraying her like a beacon. She was drowning in his scent and the waves of heat from his body.
And then suddenly he was gone, and Jesse opened heavy eyes to see Luc staring down at her with a smug look on his dark face, hands on lean hips. She only noticed then that his hair was still damp from a shower. Her insides tightened.
She sat up awkwardly, still feeling slightly uncoordinated, and then stood to face Luc, arms crossed over her chest and the betraying sting of her rock-hard nipples.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
Luc reached out and easily pulled Jesse’s arms apart until she was standing there with her wrists manacled in his huge hands.
She strugged but couldn’t break free. ‘Let me go,’ she demanded.
‘What I was doing,’ Luc said, in a supremely reasonable voice, ‘was proving that you desire me.’
Jesse pulled against his hands to no avail. Anger at him for articulating her worst fear made her spit, ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’re the last man on this earth that I would desire. Maybe you were right. Maybe I am gay.’ Jesse would have said anything right then to get him to back away.
‘Really?’ Luc glanced down to Jesse’s chest, and to her abject horror and mortification she could feel her breasts swell against the confinement of her bra as if they literally ached for his touch.
‘I don’t think you’re gay at all.’ He dropped one of her hands, and she was so surprised for a second that she didn’t stop him when he reached out and cupped one breast through the thin material of her T-shirt, and lazily rubbed a thumb back and forth over the covered peak.
Far too belatedly Jesse knocked his hand away and moved back well out of his reach. The ease with which he’d been able to hold her captive scared her, but it wasn’t because she feared him being violent or forcing her. It was fear of the fact that she seemed to have no control around him.
Shakily she said, ‘Get out of my room.’
Luc just smiled and held out his hands in a peace-making gesture. But he backed away, which had her breathing easier until he said, ‘You only have yourself to blame for this, Jesse … It’s your fault we’re here on this island, alone together in this house.’
Jesse crossed her arms over her chest again and bit out, ‘This villa is certainly big enough for both of us. Don’t worry—I’ll stay well out of your way.’
Luc’s grin got bigger and momentarily blinded Jesse.
‘I’m going to make some breakfast, if you’d care to join me?’
Jesse muttered something childish about preferring to eat worms, and it was only when Luc had finally walked out of her room and she’d hurried after him to close the door that she relaxed.
She looked at the lock on the door and wished with all her heart that she could turn the key—but she couldn’t. Much like the sight of blood, she had a phobia about being locked into any room, thanks to her father …
Choking back the sudden rise of emotion, Jesse whirled away from the door and went to the bathroom, stripping off angrily before stepping under the shower. Realising that Luc had found her sleeping, the way she’d woken up in his arms and how that had felt, was seriously unnerving.
Luc Sanchis was playing with her because she’d been stupid enough to let him see that he affected her. This was his only weapon. So of course he was going to take advantage.
She would not let him fool her like this. He fancied her about as much as he fancied a block of wood. She’d seen his women on the internet—all buxom and glamorous and confident. Full of that innate feminine beauty that she’d never emulate.
Jesse turned her face up into the drumming spray to avoid thinking about how that made her feel.
Jesse managed successfully to avoid Luc for the rest of that day and evening. She wasn’t sure how. She was just relieved that she had.
She’d gone down to the kitchen and picked at the leftovers of Luc’s food, which had been helpfully left out on a covered plate on the counter. Jesse didn’t want to acknowledge that he’d left them there for her but she had the uncomfortable feeling that he had.
All through the day the magnitude of what had happened that morning had grown bigger and bigger in her head, so that night was another sleepless one, spent tossing and turning. She got up to shower twice, in some kind of effort to relax. She even considered using the pool, but the thought of running into Luc made he
r stay in her room.
By the following morning she was worn out. She told herself she was being ridiculous. He was only playing with her head, trying to unnerve her, and she was letting him. All she had to do was draw on the cool shell of reserve that had served her so well for years. She told herself firmly to get a grip.
Dressing carefully in jeans and a shirt, all buttoned up, Jesse went down to the kitchen, girding herself to see Luc. And when she did all her recent good intentions melted into a heat haze. He was standing in the kitchen with his back to her, in nothing but a pair of board shorts which were slung low on his hips. The length of his olive-skinned bare back was a vision of muscled male perfection, drawing her helpless gaze all the way down to those lean hips. He was whistling tunelessly, with a tea towel thrown over his shoulder, and something smelt delicious.
CHAPTER SIX
LUC sensed Jesse behind him, and something scarily exultant erupted in his chest as he fought not to turn around.
She’d avoided him the entire previous day and night—concrete evidence that he had her good and rattled. His mouth compressed. He’d been rattled enough himself after those moments in her bedroom. It had taken more restraint than he’d thought he possessed not to plunder her mouth there and then. And as for touching her breast …? He grimaced now, recalling the surge of arousal in his body at just that fleeting touch.
He saw a movement beside his feet and bent down. When he straightened up he turned around and affected his best expression of surprise.
When Luc turned around and saw her surprise was etched onto his face—except Jesse didn’t believe it for a second. But then her attention was taken by the squirming tiny bundle of fur in his arms, held close to that bare chest. Curiosity defused her wariness instantly.
‘What is that?’
