Pleasure, Pregnancy and a Proposition (8 page)

L
OUISA
inhaled the luxurious scent of clean linen and the hint of roses as her eyelids fluttered open. Rich red velvet drapes hung about a foot from her nose, their sashes woven with gold thread that glinted in a thin sliver of sunlight. She blinked, but the opulent, unfamiliar decor was still there.

She rubbed her eyes, tried again, and took in the canopy above her head, hung with the same heavy velvet, and the ornate posts made of carved mahogany.

What on earth was she doing in a four-poster bed?

She pushed up onto her elbows and scanned the strange room in the half-light. It was enormous, at least twice the size of her whole flat, and the large pieces of matching antique furniture—a dressing table, a wardrobe, a table with upholstered chairs—did nothing to diminish the lavish feeling of space. Ten-foot-high bay windows across the room were shielded with the same maroon velvet curtains as the bed, cutting out all but a few shards of sunlight.

How peculiar. She’d never had a dream set in Scarlett O’Hara’s boudoir before.

But then her eyes settled on her hideously wrinkled dress—and a string of images from the day before blasted into her mind like a movie on fast-forward.

Luke’s steely grey eyes, flat and furious, as he leaned over her desk; the three-dimensional picture of their baby flickering on the ultrasound screen; Luke’s long fingers gripping the steering wheel of his car; the feel of him, hard and ready, outlined against her abdomen at the dusty service station.

Twin tides of outrage and arousal surged through her.

She flung back the satin quilt, scrambled off the bed and shot across the room, her bare feet sinking into a silk rug. She whipped back the velvet drapes and flinched as a burst of sunlight dazzled her. Then gaped as the landscape framed by mullioned glass came into focus.

The South Downs rose in the distance, dwarfing ancient woodlands which skirted over an acre of manicured lawn. She pushed up on tiptoe and peered down to see formal gardens surrounding the house, their beds bursting with summer blooms.

This wasn’t a dream. It was a nightmare.

That infuriating man had only gone and kidnapped her again!

Louisa rolled up the sleeves of the silk robe she’d found folded on a shelf under the vanity unit, finger-combed her hair and assessed her appearance in the bathroom mirror. She looked impossibly young and vulnerable in the oversized robe. Not the image she wanted to convey to Devereaux at all. But her shower had refreshed her, and at least she’d had a good night’s sleep. Now all she had to do was get her clothes and her make-up on and she would be ready to face Luke Devereaux—the rat.

Of all the miserable, dishonest, low-down, sneaky tricks. When she went downstairs she was going to give her kidnapper a really good piece of her mind about his
latest crime before she sailed past him out the door. She hadn’t quite dealt with how she was going to get home, with no shoes, no car and no money, but she’d figure something out. The point was, she was not going to be treated like this.

But as Louisa stepped out of the bathroom in her robe—and was blinded by the sunshine streaming through the now open drapes—she realised Devereaux, as per usual, had his own agenda.

‘Hello, Louisa.’ The deep, intimate rumble of his voice brought an infuriating shiver of awareness.

Louisa flung an arm up to shield her eyes and glared. He looked relaxed and in control, lounging in an armchair by the table, wearing a pair of faded jeans and a pale blue polo shirt. The casual attire threw her for a moment—reminding her of how he’d looked on their first night together—but then she spotted her boots by his feet.

‘What are you doing in my room?’ she managed on a croak of outrage.

‘It’s nearly one o’clock.’ He stood up and walked towards her. ‘Lunch is ready. I thought we could eat on the terrace.’

She stepped back, then curled her bare toes into the carpet and forced herself to stand her ground. Her chin rose as he stopped in front of her.

At five foot seven, and being a firm believer that anything lower than a four-inch heel was for gym wear only, Louisa rarely had to look up to meet a man’s gaze. Even with only his loafers on Luke Devereaux was over half a foot taller than her.

It was one more black mark against him.

‘I have absolutely no intention of eating lunch with you,’ she snapped. ‘As soon as I’m dressed I’m leaving.’

His lips twisted in a sardonic smile. A hot flush worked its way up her neck as he scanned her figure. How had he got the upper hand again? Without a stitch of clothing on under the flimsy silk, and not a dot of make-up on either, she might as well have been stark naked. What she wouldn’t do right now for a smidgen of lipgloss.

‘Think again,’ he said. His gaze flicked down to her midriff. ‘You need to eat something—especially in your condition. And you’re not going anywhere until you do.’

That did it. The curt, dismissive statement had Louisa’s temper shooting straight from smouldering embers to raging inferno. ‘You can’t stop me,’ she announced as she charged past him and stomped round the four-poster bed—which now looked obscenely large. She flung open the door to the suite. ‘Now, get out of my room.’

He crossed his arms over his chest, propped his shoulder against one of the bedposts and lifted one dark brow. But made absolutely no move to obey her command.

‘As much as I enjoy your little tantrums, Louisa,’ he said, in that patronising tone he had to know by now drove her insane, ‘I’m getting hungry myself. So why don’t you stop behaving like a petulant child and come down to lunch so we can discuss this like adults?’

She gasped, her hand dropping off the door handle. The unbelievable cheek of the man. Sorry—
rat
.

‘I’m not the child here. You are.’

She’d slapped her hands on her hips, ready to give him both barrels, when his gaze dipped to her bosom. She glanced down and her tongue stalled as she realised he could see right down her cleavage. She grappled to pull her lapels together, her nipples tightening painfully, the smooth silk feeling like sandpaper under that assessing gaze.

His lips twitched as his eyes finally lifted back to her
face. ‘You were saying?’ he enquired, as if they’d been talking about the weather.

She cleared her throat, crossed her arms over her chest and tried to get a hold on her indignation. ‘I’m not going to sit down and have lunch with you after you kidnapped me.’

He huffed out an incredulous laugh. ‘Don’t you think you’re overreacting?’

‘No, I don’t,’ she shouted. She stopped to drag a deep breath into her lungs. She mustn’t start screaming like a banshee. Hysteria now would only stoke that superiority complex of his. ‘No, I don’t,’ she repeated, as calmly as she could manage. ‘You said you’d take me to the nearest railway station and you lied.’

‘I never said any such thing,’ he replied with infuriating certainty.

She scoured her mind, trying to remember what he had or hadn’t said, and then realised he had deliberately sidetracked her. ‘I don’t care what you said,’ she sputtered. ‘You knew I didn’t want to come to Havensmere so you shouldn’t have brought me here. It’s as simple as that.’

‘Not quite,’ he said, pushing himself upright.

She found herself backing up again as he stepped forward, that languid grace more predatory than ever. ‘Don’t come any closer,’ she said, thrusting her palm up, brutally aware of what she didn’t have on under her robe.

He kept coming, forcing her to retreat as her hand touched soft cotton—and felt the tensile strength beneath.

‘You were exhausted, emotional, and probably suffering from shock—and you’re pregnant with my child,’ he said, layering on the condescension. He touched her cheek, the tenderness in his eyes disconcerting her. ‘You don’t seriously think I was going to put you on a train in that condition?’

She jerked her head away, but too late. The tingling
warmth was already spreading like wildfire. ‘Do you mind? You’re invading my personal space,’ she said, trying for flippant but getting breathless instead.

He framed her face in his palms, that megawatt smile sending heat blazing through her. ‘That’s the general idea,’ he said, his breath stirring her hair as he angled his head. ‘Your eyes go black when you’re aroused, you know,’ he murmured. ‘It’s a dead giveaway—along with those nipples.’

She grasped his upper arms, tried to hold him back with shaking hands, but her insides were already molten with need. ‘This isn’t going to settle anything. I’m still furious with you—and I still want to go home,’ she said. But the quiver in her voice meant the words sounded more like an invitation than a rebuke.

‘We’ll argue about it later,’ he whispered, thrusting his fingers into her hair, his thumbs caressing the line of her jaw. ‘Right now I want to invade more of your personal space.’

And then his lips slanted across hers.

She braced herself, tried to ignore the flood of longing. But the kiss went from harsh to coaxing in a heartbeat. His tongue swept inside, sending shockwaves through her system as if she’d been plugged into an electric socket. Her fingers flexed in the soft cotton of his shirt and, entirely of its own accord, her tongue delved back, duelling with his in a sensual battle she knew she couldn’t win.

She’d put him in his place in a minute, she thought dimly. As soon as she regained the power of speech. Right now all that mattered was letting those demanding lips feast on hers.

His chest flattened her breasts, rubbing hard against engorged nipples, and she heard the gentle thud as her back
hit the wall. He devoured her neck, sucked on the pulsepoint, and hot lava surged upwards.

Her head fell back as his rough palm cruised up her thigh under the whisper of silk. She groaned. ‘We can’t do this. We don’t have time,’ she murmured, feeling the last of her sanity being swept away on a sea of sensation.

His thumb skimmed the sensitive skin at the top of her thigh. He lifted her leg, hooked it over his hip, exposing her melting core to the hard ridge in his jeans as he pressed it against her.

‘We’ve got a week—I’ve already arranged it with Parker,’ he muttered.

She moaned and pushed against him, the unyielding hardness incredible through the thin covering of silk and denim.

But then his harsh whisper replayed in her brain and the words registered.

Her eyes shot open. ‘You did what?’ she shouted, shoving him away. She teetered precariously as sanity slammed back into her like a bucket of ice water.

‘What’s the matter?’ he growled, his eyes stormy with passion and his breathing as ragged as her own.

‘You arranged a week’s leave for me with my boss?’ She couldn’t believe it.

‘Yes. So what?’ He sounded confused.

‘So what? So you had no right, that’s what.’

He grasped her wrist, dragged her back into his arms. ‘Forget it. We’re not arguing about this now.’

‘Yes, we are.’ She slammed her hands into his chest and twisted her head as he tried to kiss her. ‘Stop it.’ She wriggled some more. ‘We’re not doing this now.’

‘But we’re both about to explode,’ he cried.

You don’t say, she thought, the heat still pumping
through her and making her knees wobbly. ‘I don’t care. I want to know why you spoke to my boss.’

‘Oh, for…’ He swore viciously and let her go. ‘Your timing stinks, you know that?’ he said, glaring at her with enough aroused fury to melt steel. ‘All right—fine.’ He dragged his fingers through his hair, making the carefully styled waves furrow into uneven rows. ‘Let’s get this out of the way.’

‘Yes, let’s,’ she said, crossing her arms over her now heaving chest.

‘We’re not going to get anything sorted in a single day,’ he shot at her, not sounding remotely conciliatory, ‘so I phoned Parker at home last night to arrange more time. What the hell is wrong with that?’

‘What’s
wrong
with that?’ She gawped at him. Was he serious? ‘Maybe you should take a wild guess.’

‘I can’t guess. I have no idea what the problem is.’

The red haze cleared slightly. He was looking at her as if she’d gone completely mad.

‘You really don’t get it, do you?’ she asked.

‘Get what?’ He bit the words off, clearly as annoyed and frustrated as she was.

The last of the anger, the outrage, drained out of her, to be replaced by a numb feeling of unreality. How could anyone be so totally clueless about personal boundaries?

‘You don’t get to arrange my leave for me.
I
do that,’ she said, not quite able to believe she was having to explain this to him. ‘Just like you don’t get to decide whether or not I come to Havensmere. That’s my decision, not yours. You’re worse than my father.’

‘But it was the right decision,’ he said, as if that fact were remotely relevant. ‘A week at Havensmere will do you good. You need to get your strength back.’ He stepped
closer—close enough for her to see the determination in his eyes. ‘And then there’s the sex—after what’s just happened I’m thinking one day isn’t going to be long enough to work that out of our systems either.’

‘We’re not having sex.’

‘Why the hell not?’

‘Because I say so,’ she hurled back. He was getting pushy again, and she wasn’t going to stand for it. ‘I told you, sex will only get in the way.’

He cursed. ‘All the more reason to get it out of the way, then. We’ve been apart for three months and the attraction is still there, as strong as ever. If you think we’re going to be able to ignore it, you’re nuts.’

He might have a point about that, she thought, her sex still throbbing, clamouring for the release she knew only he could give her. But she wasn’t about to admit it. He wasn’t going to use sex as yet another weapon in the power struggle between them.

If they made love again it was going to be on her terms, not his.

‘We’re not getting anything out of the way until you stop treating me like you own me. I want you to apologise for your high-handed behaviour, and I want you to promise not to make any more choices for me again, or I’m walking out right now.’

‘For heaven’s sake, I was looking after you—and I’m not apologising for it.’