Mr. Unforgettable (10 page)

As they reached the door, the security light came on, shining off Luke's dark hair, casting shadows across his face, grimly intent as he used his key. His gaze lifted to hers and his pupils were wide and fathomless.

She gulped.

“Too late,” he said and pulled her inside.

T
HROUGH THE DOOR'S
antique glass the security light painted the hallway in monochromatic shades of soft whites and sharp-edged black.

Liz held tighter to Luke's hand as he led her farther into the darkness. He squeezed her fingers. “Lights on or off?”

She swallowed. “On.” Reluctant as she was to be seen naked, she couldn't be ashamed of this.

There was a click, and the room was suffused in a golden glow. The homestead was a clever combination of classic and modern but the guest cottage made no compromises. Light gleamed off the polished kauri floorboards and ceiling, struck the brass candlesticks on the tiny ornamental fireplace.

The walls were an eggshell blue, the curtains extravagant billows of dusky pink. Luke's clothes were strewn over a tiny pedestal table and equally dainty chairs but it was the bed that caught Liz's attention, with its headboard of finely wrought Victorian brass, delicate crocheted white bedspread and feather pillows.

Pristine. White. Waiting.

Her heart started to pound harder. Luke pulled the drapes over the bay window, shutting out the world, and turned around. The room's delicate femininity made him somehow more male, more dangerous and more potent. Maybe she'd tie him to that headboard and run.

She was conscious of her dishevelment, the dress clinging to her body in the hot night, the impropriety of sleeping with a man she didn't love.

He turned on an overhead fan and the soft whir stirred her blood. “Come over here,” he said softly and the look in his eyes thrilled her with pleasurable terror.

“I'll meet you halfway.”

“Whatever you say.” She didn't understand his grin until he sprawled on the bed. As Liz bit her lip, he caught her in his arms and pulled her on top of him. “Relax, I won't bite—unless you want me to.”

Liz pushed up until she was sitting astride him, hands planted on his chest, her green chiffon almost gaudy against the white sheets. She'd been about to remonstrate, but his words, the way he said them, and the feel of him, hard and hot between her legs, stopped her.

“Ah,” he said, “you do want me to.”

“I don't know what I want.” But that wasn't true. She wanted sensual oblivion, to fill up all the empty, cold places with his heat, his vitality. For a little while.

He was watching her carefully. “You want to be touched,” he said, wound her hair around his big hands and drew Liz down into a kiss that thawed her all the way through. His strong fingers brushed lightly over her face, her bare shoulders and arms, sensitizing and attuning her flesh to his. Stroking her everywhere except where Liz grew desperate to be stroked. Until she'd had enough of waiting.

Hands trembling, she wrestled with the buttons of his shirt, yanking it apart and running her hands down the smooth, warm pecs, his nipples, the ridges of his stomach, sliding her fingers along what she could reach of his incredible biceps. She'd wanted to do this for so long. She bent to lick a nipple, a flat disc against the muscle, and Luke groaned and stopped playing.

He shoved down her spaghetti straps, struggled with the zip at the back of her dress. She helped him, and the chiffon and satin fell with a slither around her waist. And then his hands were skimming over her breasts, thumbing her nipples at last. At last. Driving her crazy until she thrust them in his face because she had to have more.

His mouth closed on a nipple, he suckled, then moved to the other, circling, tugging, tormenting. On a gasp, she anchored her hands in his hair, soft under her restless fingers, and instinctively moved her lower body along his erection.

His large hands slid under her dress and cupped her bottom, encouraging the movement, and sensation started building too fast in her. Making love with Harry had always been tender and slow, a gentle buildup to a civilized release. But there was nothing civilized about this.

Liz released Luke's hair. “Stop!” But his mouth still hot on her breast, he tightened his hold, sliding her remorselessly over the edge. Her orgasm was convulsive, intense. She cried out and fell forward until his face was pressed between her breasts while her heart slammed against his cheek.

She was probably suffocating him but Liz couldn't move, the fan drying her light perspiration of heat and exertion and arousal. His husky laugh vibrated through her ribs and she forced herself to roll off him onto her back. Turning her head, she saw the male complacency in his expression and felt momentarily irritated. He looked so damn together. Then she smiled and kissed the tip of his nose. “Thank you.”

Surprise flickered in his eyes. “I'm never going to work you out, am I?”

Not if she could help it. “Take off your clothes.”

Luke grinned. As he got out of bed to disrobe, she squirmed out of the rest of her dress and burrowed under the sheet, cool and crisp against her overheated skin, then pulled off her panties.

The muscles in his back rippled as Luke shrugged off his shirt and turned around. Seeing her under the sheet, he smiled, but he said nothing as he unzipped his suit pants and let them fall.

Feet planted slightly apart, he let her look her fill before hooking his thumbs in his boxers, pulling her gaze down to the cut muscle of his abdomen where the V between his narrow hips was a visual arrow to his groin. And stepped out of them. Her throat tightened. There were some things she hadn't seen during their swimming lessons.

He gestured to the sheet. “Now you.” Reluctantly, she dropped it to her waist. “Uh-uh. All the way, Fred. I like to look, too.”

She kicked her feet free and concentrated on counting her toes.

The mattress sunk as Luke sat on the bed. “Do you know how long I've been imagining your body naked? I feel like a kid at Christmas, not sure what to play with first.”

She smiled and pushed him back on the pillows. “Flatterer.”

“I don't lie and in case you haven't noticed, neither does my body.”

“I noticed.” She'd admired his body from a distance for so long, it seemed incredible that tonight it was hers to explore. With her fingers, she traced the strong curve of his jaw, his lashes, sooty and thick, and the straight outline of his mouth. She pressed her lips to the pulse in his neck, drawn by the life there, nipped lightly.

He growled and reached for her, but she caught his hands and curled them around the brass bed head. “It's your turn.”

His skin was surprisingly smooth over his undulating muscle. With her mouth and tongue Liz explored the dips and hollows and ridges of the compact muscle, shaking with increasing passion. There was a heady freedom in her emotional distance, safety in their friendship.

His knuckles were white on the polished brass long before she reached his narrow hips, the smattering of light hair below his navel.

Unceremoniously, she was hauled up his body, skin gliding against skin. “It's been too long for that.” His voice shook, and Liz was glad because she didn't want this ferocity of need to be one-sided.

The rasp of his unshaven jaw brushed her cheek, sending a visceral shiver down her spine, then his mouth brushed hers.

Luke wreathed his fingers through her hair—champagne under the lamplight—and lightly pulled, exposing her throat to his kisses. She moaned. “There, yes, there.”

Her responsiveness was driving him wild. Even in the throes of lust that had propelled him into an early marriage, he'd never experienced this primal urge to possess a woman.

Sex, he reassured himself, reveling in the feel of her skin against his, her vanilla-musk scent, her taste. It's just sex.

In passion, she was sloe-eyed, her irises indistinguishable from the pupils. Liz moaned again and Luke stopped caring what it was. He was in thrall to her body—silky skin, way too soft for a thick-skinned politician, curvy hips made to hold and touch-sensitive breasts. Moving his hand lower, he teased her until she was writhing.

“Get a condom, Luke. I can't take any more.”

He tried to enter her slowly, conscious of how long it had been for her, but she wrapped her legs around him with a need that made him lose his self-control and he drove deep, almost savagely.

“Yes,” she sobbed. “Like that.”

Sex had always been a competitive sport to Luke, except the goal was to come in second. He was never so caught up in his own pleasure that he didn't satisfy his partner first, but Liz wouldn't let him be gentle or slow.

For the first time in his life he let a woman inflame him past caring into scorching release. In the aftermath, their torsos, slick with sweat, rose and fell against each other as they gasped for air.

They rolled apart, onto their backs, and let the overhead fan dry their sweat. When his breathing returned to normal, Luke turned his head and looked sheepishly at Liz. “I have no idea if you came or not.”

Still in profile, her lips curved into a smile. “If I say no, can we do it again?”

Weakly he started to laugh and hauled her back into his arms. She was as boneless as a rag doll.

For long moments they lay in contented silence, her head on his chest. “Your heart
can
beat as fast as a normal person's,” she said smugly.

“Lady, you'd kill a normal person.”

As soon as he'd said it, Harry was an unspoken presence in the room. Shit. Cursing his big mouth, Luke stroked her hair, wondering if he would make things better or worse by saying more. As he agonized about it, something hot and wet trickled down his chest. Tears.

“Liz, I'm sorry.”

“It's not what you think.” She dried her eyes on a corner of the sheet. “I thought I'd feel guilty afterward. I don't. I'm so relieved.”

He relaxed, realizing he hadn't hurt her. But then he couldn't let the moment pass—couldn't resist teasing her. Pulling away, he threw some uncertainty into his voice. “Are you saying it was…just sex?”

She sat up to look at him, the crazy woman, worrying about hurting his feelings. Kezia had mentioned Liz's concern. “Luke, I—”

He grinned. “Gotcha.”

 

A
T
5:00
A.M
. L
UKE
was making her bacon and eggs. They were both starving. He sent Liz out to the vegetable garden for parsley and she paused to watch the fields expand into view under the rising sun, pulling his jacket closer around her bare shoulders. The dawn sky was the color of Luke's eyes…a soft, fresh gray.

He cooked in old jeans, low around his lean hips, and nothing else, and she couldn't resist leaning against all that solid muscle as she told him how she liked her eggs. Over easy. He turned them with a spatula; with his free hand he hauled her close.

She kissed his bare shoulder, warm and still damp from his shower. The pan forgotten, Luke nuzzled her neck, lifting her hair to reach the shiver spot he'd discovered last night. It scared Liz how quickly he'd learned her sensual secrets. They ended up eating their eggs hard and didn't care.

“Everyone will be up soon.” She swallowed the last of her coffee. “I have to go.”

Nodding, Luke rose from the breakfast table. She liked the way he respected her need for privacy. He'd also been careful to retrieve her shoes before they'd gone to sleep.

To Liz's relief, there'd been no dreams. Maybe, she thought as they walked across the dew-laden grass to her car, because Luke had kept waking her up to make love. Still expecting guilt or regret, she probed her feelings. Nothing. Their friendship had stopped the experience from being sordid. She linked arms with him, enjoying their physical closeness while she could.

At the car he lifted her hand and kissed it in a strangely old-fashioned gesture. “Will I see you again, Fred?”

For a moment, the happiness in his expression made her want to be reckless. But that would be foolhardy and she was a sensible woman. Still, her hand tightened instinctively on his. “No.”

“Hell,” he said lightly. “You accepted the offer to accompany that pampered shih tzu on a six-month cruise around the Med, didn't you?”

Releasing his hand, Liz dumped her bag in the trunk and turned on her cell phone. Ten messages. “What can I say? FrouFrou won't let anyone else touch her cuticles. We sail at eight tomorrow night.”

“About the time I take my next swimming lesson with the mayor.”

She hesitated. “Don't mention me, will you? I have a feeling she'd disapprove.”

His eyes weren't dawn gray anymore, they were as reflective as a mirror. “If that's what you want.”

“Don't you?”

“You have more to lose than I do.” For some reason an image of him standing alone in the garden yesterday flickered into her mind, then his lips brushed hers in a farewell kiss that was almost impersonal. She didn't like it. Catching his shirt collar she kept him close, deepening the kiss until they were both lost in it.

While she still could, Liz released him. “So you don't forget Fred,” she said unsteadily and got into her car. It smelled of reports and seat leather and responsibility. She forced herself not to glance in the rearview mirror as she drove away.