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.
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