Bought for His Bed: Virgin Bought and Paid For / Bought for Her Baby / Sold to the Highest Bidder!. Kate Hardy

the floor beside the bed.

      He took three strides and hauled her into his arms, kissing her with a passion that set her pulse rate soaring into the stratosphere.

      Then he fell back onto the bed with her, knocking a pillow onto the floor.

      He was half over her, kissing her passionately, when the door opened.

      ‘I am so sorry, but—’ Gabrielle’s voice stopped.

      Luke lifted his head and gazed at her, then got to his feet in magnificent, half-naked authority. ‘What is it?’ he asked. And when she said nothing, he demanded bluntly, ‘Is something the matter, Gabrielle? Your grandfather?’

      Fleur sat up on the bed, and the intruder’s stormy gaze went from Luke’s handsome, controlled face to Fleur’s—flushed, embarrassed and very obviously seriously kissed.

      She had to admire the girl’s composure, although her next words shocked her.

      ‘Slut! Whore!’ Gabrielle hissed, and started a low, fierce tirade in French.

      Immediately Luke silenced her, his voice swift and cutting as the crack of a whip. ‘I won’t ask why you feel entitled to walk into someone else’s room without invitation, but I’m telling you to go.’

      Gabrielle’s face crumpled, her veneer of sophistication fading to reveal her youth. She said unevenly, ‘I am sorry. I just wanted to…’

      With disciplined, formidable force, Luke said, ‘I don’t know how you developed the idea that there was some connection between us, but I want it stopped right now. When the time comes I will choose my own wife. Do you understand me?’

      The girl nodded and repeated, ‘I am sorry.’

      ‘No more interviews with magazines hinting at a secret engagement, and no more sly tips to gossip columnists.’

      Colour flooded Gabrielle’s face. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No more,’ and, gulping, she turned and fled.

      Fleur didn’t blame her. Luke in a temper—even one so well controlled as this—was a truly daunting experience. But she couldn’t let her go like that, and bolted off the bed.

      ‘Don’t follow her,’ Luke said, closing the door, his expression rueful. ‘I feel like someone who’s just pulled the wings off a butterfly, but she’ll need time to herself, not with you.’

      ‘Perhaps the Princess—?’ Fleur suggested tentatively.

      His brows shot up. ‘Your compassion is misplaced, I suspect. No, Lauren is probably sound asleep by now. Anyway, for all her flaws Gabrielle has guts and pride. I think she’d rather deal with this herself. Wouldn’t you?’

      Fleur shivered. ‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘I’m older than she is, though.’

      ‘Probably not as experienced.’ He looked down at her, his expression aloof. ‘I’m sorry you had to endure that. I know I was cruel, but I needed to establish once and for all that she’s been spinning moonbeams.’

      ‘It’s all right,’ she said awkwardly.

      He was too close. Adrenalin was still surging through her veins, and the subtle scent of aroused male was doing something weird to her thought processes—to say nothing of the remembered imprint of his mouth on hers and the weight of his body.

      ‘When I asked you to do this I hoped I was anticipating something that might not even exist,’ he said. ‘I had no idea it was already such a problem, or that she’d be so persistent.’

      ‘Do you think you’ve scotched it?’

      He shrugged, the light gleaming on his wide shoulders, tanned and sleek and eminently touchable. Fleur’s fingertips tingled, and only a massive exercise of will stopped her from leaning the few inches between them and pressing her mouth to his skin, drawing him back down onto the bed with her so they could finish what they’d started…

      ‘I hope so. I’ll talk to her grandfather tomorrow in case he’s been feeding her these ideas.’

      She nodded and stared straight ahead. ‘Right. Now, as that’s done, you might as well go back to your own room,’ she said brightly, the brittle words almost shattering as she articulated them.

      ‘Sorry,’ he said coolly. ‘But just in case, I’m staying here.’

      She swung around, eyes enormous in her flushed face, her breasts heaving beneath the fragile camisole top. ‘No!’ she said explosively. ‘I don’t want you—’

      He was watching her with narrowed, intent eyes, but he interrupted with a smile that was half scorn, half hunger. ‘Don’t lie to me, Fleur,’ he said. ‘You’re scared, but you want me all right. Just as I want you.’

      He trailed a lean fingertip along her collarbone, letting it linger as he watched the shifting expressions on her face, the swift fear replaced by a slow dawning of desire mirrored in her green eyes and the soft curves of her lush mouth.

      ‘Whoever named you Fleur should have chosen Margaret,’ he said, his voice deep and barely controlled. ‘It means pearl, and you were born to wear them. Your skin is more beautiful than the pearl you wore tonight, because it’s warm and fine and smooth as silk. Did you know pearls fade and die if they’re not worn?’

      She dragged a breath into her lungs, and Luke had to concentrate on her mouth, her eyes, so that he didn’t get driven astray by the soft curves beneath the flimsy camisole.

      ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Do they?’

      ‘They need to be caressed and oiled and loved by their owners.’

      He shouldn’t be doing this. He should stop the slow wooing with words, the silken caress, the heated, desperate appetite that had been a constant companion since the moment he’d seen her.

      Luke had never made love to a woman who hadn’t made it obvious that she wanted sex with him. Always he’d steered clear of virgins and the inexperienced, but something stronger than caution and respect drove him now, a raw hunger that undermined his self-control.