At His Convenience Bundle (13 page)

The water in the tub might be cooling, but the wetness inside her certainly wasn't. She could feel its heat spreading through her as Luke's fingers found her—found her and touched her, stroked her, opened her…

She was beyond reason, beyond reality—beyond anything but this. The stroke of his hand, the suckle of his mouth, the soft rhythmic sensation of the water…

She could feel the surge of her orgasm beginning to mount, as unstemmable as the tide itself, and, as though Luke could feel it too, he picked her up and carried her towards the steps.

The thud of his own arousal beat through his body and echoed in his ears. This wasn't need, and it wasn't desire. It went way, way above and beyond that, and it had taken him to a place where he was a stranger, a humble acolyte, only just beginning to learn the true meaning of the new world he had entered.

As he carried her up the steps to the floor, Suzy could see their reflections in the mirror. Water ran from their bodies and her nipples, swollen from his caresses, peaked dark and hard in the candlelit room.

‘Which position do you want to try first?' he asked again.

Luke had placed her on a pile of soft towels and was leaning over her. Excitement, shock and disbelief ran through her veins like liquid fire. Her body ached heavily with unsatisfied need, and Suzy knew she didn't care how he completed their union just so long as he did. She was in physical pain with her desire to have him inside her, her emotions and her body coiled to breaking point.

‘This one?' His voice was a dark, tormenting whisper against the back of her neck as he moved her.

Shudders ran through her body as his hands stroked the skin of her bowed back. In the mirror she could see him leaning over her, his erection straining from the silky mat of hair surrounding its base.

‘Is this what you want?' he whispered dangerously.

His hands were on her hips, and as she tilted her head back to look above the mirror and over their reflections she could see the position he was mimicking on the wall above them.

Violent shudders convulsed her.

‘Or would you prefer this one?'

Suzy had to grit her teeth to prevent herself from crying out for him to stop tormenting her as he moved her again. Her body seemed to have no means of moving by itself. It had become completely obedient to his touch, whilst deep inside her the tension continued to grow so that she felt as though at any second it would spill from her and flood through her.

Her gaze embraced his erection with a molten look of longing and hunger. She reached out and touched him, hot flesh beneath her shaking fingertips, stretched over him, the foreskin pushed back to expose the rounded tip, dark and rosy. She rimmed her fingertip around it feeling his whole body jerk.

Luke could feel himself starting to shudder as his control collapsed in on itself. Her touch was destroying everything he had put up against her. He had become a mindless physical instrument, reliant on her touch, dependent on her response.

He could feel the onset of his orgasm. From a distance he could hear her moaning his name, pleading with him to fill her with his body.

They were still lying on the towels together, and Luke was holding her, lifting her, entering her only just in time. On a surging explosion of relief and release his one powerful thrust carried them to completion on fierce, unending surges of pleasure that racked them again and again whilst he spilled hotly into the waiting, wanting heat of her body.

 

They were only just in time for dinner. Suzy was pale and lost in her own private bliss-filled world. Her mouth was swollen, but nowhere near as swollen as her breasts and nipples, which she had thankfully been able to conceal beneath her clothes. Her eyes looked slumberous, and somehow sensuously knowing.

As they reached the drawing room door she drew back a little unsteadily to look up at Luke, her gaze filled with so much emotion it hurt Luke to look back at her.

It wasn't real, he told himself grimly. She just
thought
she loved him. He had had no right to do what he had just done, and one day she was going hate him for it!

As he already hated himself!

He could feel Suzy quivering at his side. He looked at her again. Her face was pale, her eyes luminous, her mouth…Luke could feel his own pupils dilating in response to the message of those swollen lips. Inside his head he could see, feel, taste the more intimate flesh their swollen softness mimicked.

To his disbelief, Luke realised he had an erection.

‘You go in,' he told Suzy curtly. ‘I've got something I need to do.'

Oblivious to the real meaning of his words, Suzy tried to calm herself as he walked away from her, leaving her to enter the room alone.

Immediately Lucy and Charlie bounded over to her side. They were lovely children, she acknowledged tenderly, and they deserved to have a woman in their lives who truly loved them.

 

As he stood in his office and willed his erection to subside Luke knew that he could not allow the situation to continue. For Suzy's sake. If he allowed her to stay on at the villa now he knew he didn't have a hope of keeping out of her bed…their bed.

Right now she believed she loved him, but Luke knew that she did not. He had to send her away!

S
UZY
stared out of the salon window. She felt heavy-eyed from another night of too much thinking. And she had no idea where Luke had spent the night—it certainly hadn't been with her, in the suite!

The salon door opened and she spun round quickly, but it was Lucy.

‘Are you waiting for Luke?' she asked Suzy. ‘He's with Daddy. I wish you were going to be with us always, Suzy,' Lucy burst out, and then blushed. ‘Some of the girls at school have got stepmothers and they say that they don't like them, but I think it would be cool if we had one—especially if she was like you.'

Suzy couldn't stop herself from giving the girl a fierce hug. She was still holding her when the door opened and Luke walked in. He had been avoiding her since they had made love in the bathroom, and Suzy knew it was only Lucy's presence that prevented her from begging him to tell her why.

‘I wish that you were my stepmother, Suzy,' Lucy said passionately, hugging her tightly.

Luke frowned when he heard Lucy's outburst. It was no secret to him that Peter Verey was attracted to Suzy—what sane man would not be? He had had to fight off his own jealousy every evening since Suzy had been at the villa as he'd watched the other man flirting with her, but now it was surging almost out of control, forcing him to turn on his heel and stride out of the room.

Suzy watched him go, confusion filling her. What had caused him to suddenly walk away.

 

‘So, it looks as though the President isn't going to show, then?' Sir Peter questioned.

‘I'm afraid that it does look very much like that,' Luke agreed grimly as they stood together in his office.

‘We've spoken to his people, and reiterated to them just how important this discussion is, but apparently he feels that he would be too exposed if he comes to Europe.' Luke's mouth compressed. ‘He's playing with us, of course. We all know that. But there's nothing we can do other than wait. There's a rumour that he needs to be at home at the moment to quell some potential unrest. If that's true it could be several months before he's ready to set up fresh talks.'

‘It looks like we've dragged you out here for nothing, Luke,' Sir Peter apologised.

Luke remained silent. After Sir Peter had left, he typed out a report and made several telephone calls. He had e-mails to answer and a variety of other correspondence to deal with…

 

It was late afternoon before Luke saw Suzy again. She was playing with the children, oblivious to the fact that he was watching her with a hungry lover's gaze. Right now he wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and take her to bed, make her tell him how much she loved him.

But he wasn't going to it. No he was going to send her away.

Suzy looked up as she saw Luke approaching them Her skin was glazed with perspiration and her hair was sticking in exercise-dampened curls to her neck and face. She had enjoyed herself with the children, but Luke had never been out of her thoughts. Automatically she went towards him, and then stopped as he stepped back from her.

‘You shouldn't be out here overdoing things.' His voice was clipped, and Suzy stifled her dangerous need to believe that he was speaking so because he cared.

‘I'm fully recovered now,' she told him valiantly.

‘Good, I'm glad to hear it.' He paused and looked at her, and something went still and cold inside Suzy's heart. ‘Sir Peter's meeting with President Njambla has been cancelled,' Luke went on, in the clipped voice.

‘I've booked you on to a flight for London mid-morning tomorrow.'

‘What? No—Luke…' Suzy started to protest, but he was already walking away from her, leaving her white faced and desolate as she struggled to contain her pain.

She was still aching with misery a couple of hours later, when she went back to the suite to pack her clothes and have a shower.

For some reason she couldn't explain, even to herself, she did something she had never done the whole time she had been staying at the villa—and that was to turn the key in the outer door to the suite, locking herself inside and Luke outside! Out of temptation's way!

Her packing finished, she went to shower, determinedly refusing to look at the tub as she walked past it on her way back to the bedroom, before tiredly wrapping herself in a towel and crawling onto the bed.

 

Luke frowned as he turned the handle of the suite and realised the door was locked.

Wryly he wondered if Suzy had the least idea of what his Army training had equipped him for, and several seconds later he opened the door with silent ease.

She was lying on the bed, curled up on her side with her back towards him, quite obviously asleep.

Stripping off, he headed for the shower. He had a busy night ahead of him, sorting out the chaos caused by the African President's machinations, and he had come up to the room to grab a power-nap first.

Half an hour later he was to all intents and purposes still fast asleep on the sofa in the sitting room when he heard it. The smallest of muffled sounds. But he was awake immediately and on his feet in one smooth, predatory move.

Suzy was still asleep—but no longer peacefully. Her hands were clenched and she was moving frantically in panic. She gave a small, shrill whimper of terror. She was having her nightmare again!

Luke reached out and touched her bare shoulder.

Immediately she screamed, and then woke up. She sat up, shivering as she wrapped her arms around her knees, oblivious to her own nudity.

‘Luke!' Suzy's eyes rounded, her gaze flickering towards the door to the sitting room. ‘How…? What are you doing in here?' she demanded.

‘It's our room,' Like reminded her calmly.

‘Our room?' Suzy looked bravely at him. ‘But you don't want me here.'

She was starting to tremble, and Luke had to grit his teeth to stop himself from reaching out and taking her in his arms.

‘Why don't you try and go back to sleep?' he suggested.

It would certainly suit him if she did, and it would suit him even more if she covered herself up. Right now just the knowledge that he had only to turn his head and he would be able to see the silky curve of her naked shoulder, the small hollow at the base of her throat which he had already explored so thoroughly, was driving him crazy.

‘No!'

The vehemence of her denial made him freeze.

‘No. I can't go back to sleep. I'm afraid that I'll start dreaming again about the grotto,' she whispered.

Like her, Luke must have showered, she recognised, because he was wearing a towel wrapped around his hips so low that she could see the beginnings of his scar. Automatically she reached out and touched it with her fingers, and then with her lips. He stood at the side of the bed as immobile as a statue.

What was she doing? Was she going crazy? Suzy didn't know and she didn't care. She was high on the scent and the taste of Luke, drugged by her own need for him.

Luke tried to resist, to remind himself that it was for her own sake that he was sending her away, but his body overruled him. One minute he was telling himself he wouldn't touch her, the next she was in his arms and he was kissing her as though he was starving for the taste and feel of her!

Kissing her was like tasting a freshly picked peach—each taste made him eager for another, and then another, so that he could posses her unique sweet juiciness for ever…

Suzy pulled away from Luke's kiss to press her lips to his throat, and then his chest, stroking her fingertips through the soft warmth of his body hair as just for this moment she allowed herself to pretend that Luke was really hers, that she had rights of territorial possession over his body—it was hers to do with as she wished, to enjoy as she wanted, to touch, explore and know in a hundred different ways, so that she could store that knowledge for her future enjoyment.

Her tongue-tip rimmed his navel and felt the fierce clench of his muscles. She lifted her head and looked sideways at the purple scar, and she reached out to touch it again, liquid emotion shining in her eyes. A badge of courage and more importantly—to her, at least—a badge of love for his fellow human beings.

She bent her head, her lips poised to breathe a tender kiss against it. But Luke's harsh objection savaged the silence, and suddenly she was rolled underneath him, pinned there by the hard weight of his body whilst he stilled her soft sounds of pleasure with the savage heat of his mouth.

She shouldn't be doing this, Suzy knew. Luke did not love her as she did him. But how could she stop? How could she resist the need that was filling her, overruling reason and pride? She loved him! She wanted him! And right now nothing else mattered other than that he was holding her.

As his hands sculpted Suzy's body Luke told himself that it was for the last time. He cupped her breasts, savouring the malleability of them. He wanted to kiss them, lick them, pleasure them until she arched under him and writhed against him in hungry need. He wanted…

‘No!'

Abruptly he released Suzy and stood up, his back to her as he stared out of the window.

Suzy waited, whilst her heart jerked in pain, and then, when he didn't move, she picked up her towel, wrapped it around herself and walked silently into the bathroom so that she could cry her eyes out under cover of the noise of the running shower.

Oh, why hadn't she stopped him before he had rejected her?

Outside in the bedroom Luke touched the scar on his side. She had touched it, kissed it, looked at him with luminous loving eyes.

She
didn't
love him, he reminded himself. She just thought she did. She just believed she did because she thought he had saved her life! If she did love him she would have known it before that time in the grotto, just as he had known he loved her.

But love could grow, Luke told himself fiercely. And if Suzy believed that she loved him then who was to say that she might not in time—?

No, Luke told himself savagely. No. He would not do that to her. He would not lock her into a relationship that denied her the right to love freely. He could not.

He could not bear to let her go—but he had to for her own sake!

 

The first thing Suzy saw when she woke up was the small package on the bedside table. Picking it up, she opened it. Inside was her passport and her flight ticket, plus a generous amount of euros.

Tears filled her eyes as she carefully removed the money and put it down on the bedside table.

She had breakfast in her room—though there was no need for her to feel so anxious, she assured herself miserably. Luke wasn't likely to come in and say goodbye, so there was no risk of her flinging herself into his arms and telling him how much she loved him, begging him to give her a chance.

A chance? Did she really think there was one after the way he had rejected her last night—even though his body had wanted her? That could only mean that he didn't love her. She knew that!

There was nothing for her to linger for. She had already said her goodbyes to the children, and to Sir Peter, and given him her thanks for their hospitality.

‘Will you come and see us at school?' Lucy had begged Suzy, tears in her eyes as she hugged her fiercely.

‘Of course I will,' Suzy had assured her.

Poor little scraps! They had so much in material terms, and yet so very little in all the ways that mattered.

She stayed upstairs until she saw the taxi arriving from her bedroom window, and then she went down, carrying her small case with her.

The children were waiting to wave her off, wearing the clothes they had bought together. Suzy had to blink away tears as she hugged them and promised again to keep in touch.

Unable to stop herself, she looked towards the closed door to Luke's office, willing him to come out. But to what purpose? The only thing she really wanted him to say was, Please don't go! followed by, I love you! And she was not likely to hear him say those words, was she? Forcing a wan smile, Suzy gave the children one last kiss and then walked out to her taxi.

Standing in front of the window of his small office, Luke watched her. He had been deliberately avoiding her—why make problems for himself? Why put himself in a situation he already knew he couldn't fully control? She was opening the taxi door. By the time he took one deep breath and counted to ten she would be gone.

One deep breath…

He flung open the door to his office and raced towards the front door. He had almost reached it when Sir Peter suddenly emerged from his own office and called out urgently to him, ‘Luke—quick! I need you. The Prime Minister's on the phone, Njambla's people have been back in touch. The meeting's on again.'

For a second Luke was tempted to ignore him—breaking one of his own unbreakable rules—but he could hear the taxi door closing, and his conscience was telling him that he had to let her go. His face stripped of expression, he turned away from the front door and walked towards Sir Peter.