He pulled back and looked down at Jesse. She was blinking up into his face, and a sigh of relief moved through him at the sight of colour in her cheeks again. He tried valiantly to block out the view of water running in rivulets over her pert breasts.
Reaching out, he snagged a robe and then turned off the water. He wrapped the robe around Jesse, rubbing up and down her arms and back briskly.
He stopped for a moment and looked at her. ‘Are you okay?’
JESSE looked up into Luc’s eyes. She had complete recollection of what had just happened, but it was as if it had happened to someone else. And in a way it had: to her child self.
Belatedly answering Luc’s question, she nodded abruptly. She was suddenly far too aware that she was standing in a steamy shower with a very naked Luc Sanchis. Praying that her legs would support her, she turned and stepped out of his hands into the bathroom, noticing their sodden clothes on the ground.
She found the holes for her arms in the robe and put them in, tying the belt securely around her. She felt raw, as if she’d been flayed. She heard Luc moving behind her and went into the bedroom to sit on the end of the bed. He was standing in the doorway to the bathroom with a towel around his hips. The light behind him was throwing his broad build into sharp relief, and Jesse felt that ever-present awareness curl into her belly.
He leant against the door and crossed his arms. ‘Do you want to explain what just happened?’
Jesse gulped and looked away. The strength of her reaction to being locked into the room scared her. She knew she’d always had a thing about it, but somehow here her past was reaching up to grip her around the neck with an ease that terrified her. She felt a strong urge to articulate it—as if she knew that it might be the only way to stop it happening again.
She glanced back to Luc and saw the lines of his face, intent and serious. She looked down at her lap and plucked at a stray thread.
‘When I was nine I was locked into a room with my mother for a night. She was sick, and during the night she died … I couldn’t get out. No one could hear me. I was with her dead body until someone finally opened the door the next day.’
‘Hell …’
She heard Luc moving, the muffled sound of a chair being moved across the floor, and then he was sitting in front of her, taking her hands. Reluctantly she looked at him, and the expression on his face made her feel a swooping sensation in her belly.
‘How on earth could something like that happen?’
Jesse grimaced. ‘I knew she was very ill. She’d been sick for days but hadn’t gone to the doctor … I went to get help, but he wouldn’t listen to me.’
‘You mentioned your father just now … Was it your father you asked for help?’
Jesse nodded. She felt numb inside. ‘He was hosting a dinner party that night. He was drunk and didn’t want to be disturbed. He took me back to the bedroom and told me to stop bothering him. When I went after him again he locked me in …’
Jesse remembered her father lurching unsteadily over to her mother in the bed and feeling her clammy forehead before declaring, ‘She’s fine. It’s just a cold.’
She looked at Luc, needing to erase that memory of her father.
‘By the time morning came and someone opened the door she was dead—had been for hours …’
Luc frowned. ‘Where was your father?’
Jesse shrugged. ‘At work …’
Luc frowned, and then he said, ‘But earlier you locked the door to the study …’
Jesse blushed. ‘I just pretended to lock it.’
Luc’s mouth tipped up wryly. ‘I didn’t even think to test it.’
Something infinitely delicate seemed to stretch between them at that moment.
Luc gripped Jesse’s hands tighter. ‘I’m sorry for locking you in. If I’d had any idea—’
Jesse put her hand over his mouth, and took it away again quickly when his warm breath feathered against her palm. ‘You weren’t to know. I didn’t know I’d react like that.’ She ducked her head. ‘It’s embarrassing.’
Luc tipped up her chin and looked at her. ‘No, it’s not embarrassing. Your father was a monster, Jesse, to do that to you and your mother.’
‘Yes, he was.’
‘Is that why you told me you didn’t know who your father was? Because you don’t like to talk about him?’
Jesse felt guilty. ‘Something like that.’
To her surprise Luc stood up, and Jesse blushed when she registered what part of his anatomy her eyes were on a level with.
He stepped back and said lightly, ‘You must be tired. You should get some rest.’
Jesse stood up too, some of those tendrils of icy panic reaching out for her again at the prospect of Luc walking out. Without thinking she put out a hand, curling it around his wrist. It felt vital and alive beneath her palm. His pulse was strong and powerful. She suddenly knew that she needed this, needed him, as she’d never needed anything before in her life. Right in that moment she trusted him implicitly.
Huskily she said, ‘Please don’t leave me alone.’
He stopped and turned to face her directly. ‘What are you saying, Jesse?’
She looked up at him, feeling as if she was stepping out into a void. ‘Please stay with me tonight.’
Jesse could see Luc’s jaw clench.
Carefully he said, ‘If I stay with you we share a bed, and if we share a bed we won’t be doing much sleeping.’
Wild excitement rushed through her, obliterating the awful memories and the fear that had gripped her. She stepped closer to Luc, his wrist still in her hand. ‘That’s what I was hoping you’d say …’
In some dim and distant recess of her mind Jesse couldn’t believe she was being so forward, but for the first time in her life everything felt right. This man, this moment. The past few days, everything that had happened, the way he’d reacted just now and the moments when he’d shown her real gentleness—she had come to trust him on some very deep and vulnerable level, but she couldn’t really acknowledge that now. She could only act on it.
Luc said, ‘Are you sure?’
Jesse just said, ‘Stop talking, Sanchis …’ and dropped his wrist. She reached up and put her arms around his neck, funnelled her hands through his hair, urging his head down to hers. ‘Kiss me.’
Luc’s arms went around her waist, dragging her even closer. Jesse could feel the thrilling hard ridge of his arousal and moved against him.
He growled softly. ‘I thought I told you we’ve gone way beyond such formality …’
He lowered his head and pulled her up to meet him. Their mouths met and Jesse melted into a sea of raging hormones. They kissed for what felt like for ever, tongues tangling together in a languorous erotic dance. And then Jesse felt herself being lowered onto her bed. She lay back and looked up at Luc, eyes drinking in his hard-boned form greedily.
He came down over her on his arms, not even touching her yet, tantalising her. Emboldened, Jesse moved her hands to her robe