She refused to glance at the car, or be panicked into any foolish action, and yet as the driver menacingly kept pace with her she found her eyes flickering nervously towards it, her heart coming into her mouth as she recognised the hardly handsome profile of the driver. Luke Ferguson! He must have waited outside the flat until she left. Instead of reassuring her the knowledge of his identity increased her fear. She had never doubted that her behaviour had made him furious—that had been more than evident, and in view of his own arrogant attitude she had considered her actions completely justified, but now she was beginning to wonder how much she had underestimated him. He was following her to punish her; probably hoping to panic her into an ignominious flight which would be brought to an abrupt halt when it was outstripped by the powerful car he was driving. Up ahead of her an alleyway loomed, and with a feeling of relief she remembered that it led to a small square from which she could quite easily walk to her own apartment block. The alleyway was only a footpath; Luke could not follow her up it, and she hurried into it with a feeling of thankfulness, almost welcoming the darkness which swallowed her up as she stepped off the main road.
At first she was too relieved to have escaped to be aware of the soft footsteps shadowing the tapping of her high heels, and it was only some sixth sense that made her hesitate, nerves stretched like taut wire as her ears and eyes searched the darkness—no longer protective, but terrifyingly alien, masking all manner of danger. Nothing moved. She must have been imagining those faint sounds, Genista told herself. She turned, her sharp cry of protest cut off as strong fingers circled her throat.
‘So you thought you’d eluded me, and now instead you find you’ve run straight into a trap’ Luke jeered in a whisper. ‘Oh, don’t worry, I’m not going to harm you—much as I’d like to squeeze this soft throat of yours until you’re begging me for mercy. Surely you didn’t think I’d let you get away with humiliating me so easily?’
His grip of her throat prevented Genista from replying. Terror had given way to anger, and she struggled wildly, trying to free herself from the steel-like arm he had flung round her waist, pulling her back against him.
‘When I walked in that room tonight and saw you, I thought I was seeing a dream. Your beauty caught me by the throat; there seemed to be an instant rapport between us, or so I thought. But I was wrong, wasn’t I, Genista? All you saw was another man to build up and then let down. I’ve heard about women like you who get their kicks from that sort of thing.’
His grip on her throat had relaxed sufficiently for her to speak, her eyes mirroring her contempt as she stared up at him.
‘Instant rapport?’ Scorn laced the words. ‘Oh, come on. You can’t expect me to believe that? I wasn’t born yesterday, Luke. I know what men like you are looking for when they look at a woman. Someone who’s accommodating in bed; someone who won’t make a fuss when she’s tossed aside to make room for the next in line. A little divertissement; a means of passing the time. You looked at me like a man who was trying to work out how long it would take you to get me into bed. Your vanity is so enormous that it never even occurred to you that I might not want to be there. You wanted me and that was enough. You deserved everything you got from me, Luke, so don’t expect me to apologise. After all, I wasn’t doing anything to you that you haven’t probably already done to many, many women.’
‘Is that a fact?’ She could feel his body tighten with tension. ‘I never argue with a lady.’ He emphasised the last word, and Genista could feel the tightly leashed anger emanating from him—anger which he had no right to feel, she reminded herself. ‘And contrary to what you seem to think, I’ve never gone in for physically humiliating them—until tonight.’
Before she could unravel the meaning hidden in the words he had spun her round, his arms locking tightly round her so that the palms of her hands were pressed against the hard warmth of his chest. He wasn’t wearing a jacket and she could feel the crispness of his body hair beneath the thin cotton. Her mouth was dry with apprehension, perspiration breaking out over her body in a heated wave, despite the coolness of the evening.
‘Let me go!’ The words were betrayingly unsteady, and she knew from the satirical gleam of the cold grey eyes that she had not been able to hide her fear from him.
‘This is for my own satisfaction,’ Luke told her, as his head descended with slow deliberation. ‘It’s a pity no one else can witness it, but until I can find a way of getting public satisfaction for what you did to me tonight, it will have to do.’
What followed was like something out of a nightmare. His lips were cool; deceptively gentle at first, moving lightly against the numbed flesh of her own. Luke’s weight bore her backwards, until she was leaning over his arm, her body vulnerably exposed to his eyes and hands—a situation of which he took full advantage as his free hand moved leisurely over her body, stopping nerve-rackingly just below the full curve of her breast, where her heart was beating like a trapped bird. It was a long time since a man had touched her so intimately. Richard had been the only one to do so—fumbled, uneasy caresses, nothing like the assured, knowledgeable touch of this man, who seemed to know instinctively the moment when her cool control would give way to deep shudders, which he mercilessly exploited, his hand sliding under the thin stuff of her top, pushing aside her bra to stroke her nipple roughly with his thumb.
When her mouth parted in shocked protest, his hardened over it, his kiss callously enforcing his superior strength. Bitter resentment filled Genista. What he was doing was tantamount to assault, and there was nothing she could do about it. The harsh pressure of his mouth was bruising the tender flesh of her lips, forcing them back against her teeth, with relentless, grinding pressure, his hand on her breast eliciting a response that shocked and humiliated. Since Richard no man had ever aroused her sexually; Richard she had loved and even with him she had been shy and reserved, and yet here was this contemptuous stranger, teaching her that her body was capable of a treachery she had never dreamed existed, because, despite her own horror and abhorrence, physically she had responded to him, and they both knew it.
When he released her, satisfaction gleamed in the steel-grey depths of his eyes, and childishly Genista rubbed the back of her hand against her mouth as though by doing so she could obliterate the memory of his touch. Where his hand had touched her breast it seemed to throb with an aroused awareness which awakened some deeply primitive core she had not known she possessed.
‘My place or yours?’
The crude question brought her abruptly back to reality.
‘Neither,’ she said coldly. ‘I meant what I said, Luke. I don’t want you.’
‘But I want you,’ he said silkily, ‘and you seem to have forgotton that this time I have the upper hand. You aren’t surrounded by your friends this time, Genista. We’re all alone here and there’s no one to stop me forcing you into my car and taking you back to my apartment—and I will do if I have to, make no mistake about that.’
‘You’d force me, merely to appease your masculine pride?’ A little of her disgust must have showed in her voice, because for a second she saw something flicker in his eyes, and then they hardened.
‘Why not? It might be quite an experience.’
‘Meaning you don’t normally have to use force, I suppose?’ she said bitterly. She was feeling badly frightened, but she wasn’t going to let it show.
‘Not normally,’ Luke agreed urbanely, but there was a tightening of his mouth that warned her that he was annoyed. ‘As I say, it might be quite an experience—for me. I doubt if you would enjoy it very much. Not even an experienced woman enjoys being raped.’
Raped? Genista stared at him.
‘I’ll report you to the police,’ she said unsteadily. ‘Rape is a criminal offence. You’ll be thrown into prison …’
‘No