'Go away!' she yelled, banging the water with her hand and sending a showering his direction. It was futile, childish, but she was past caring about minor details.
'Get out, Emily.'
'No!' she yelled defiantly. There were no alternatives but she felt it important not to capitulate. She began to shiver convulsively as the chill seemed to enter her bones.
Luke cursed, then she watched, horrified, as he waded into the water. She emitted a strangled squeak as he scooped her up in his arms and carried her out of the loch. After one startled, scared glance into his blue eyes, she shut her own tightly. His were too observant and she was incapable of disguising the impact the damp contact was having upon her. She was held captive, not just by his arms but by the erotic sensations that were scalding her. Sweat mingled with the salt water, making her skin slick beneath her waterlogged nightdress. She felt intoxicated, defenceless under the weight of desire the touch of him evoked.
He remained silent when she linked her hands around his neck, although she heard his sharp inhalation and felt his chest rise and fall rapidly. She allowed her head to fall against the breadth of his chest, knowing she would probably regret this weakness later. The security was an illusion, but it was blissful. She drank in the musky male scent of him, took note of every minute detail of him, knowing she'd replay the sensations later on…
He placed her on the kitchen floor and she felt something inside her protest as the intimate contact was broken. A small pool of water was developing around her feet, and she contemplated the sight with deep interest.
'Fairly stupid even by your standards.' The deep timbre of his voice was strained. She raised her eyes reluctantly. He looked like some dark, austere angel, her fallen Lucifer, emanating disapproval. He raked his dark hair with his fingers. He was wet up to mid- thigh, the material of his jeans clinging to the outline of his legs. A deep carnation stained the rounded contour of her smooth cheeks and she looked away. 'The water is several metres deeper a little further along.'
'I can swim,' she said in an offhand manner which through her eyelashes she could see irritated him enormously. The fact satisfied a perverse desire to aggravate him.
'You're freezing,' he observed, watching the faint tremors she couldn't suppress. 'You need to get out of that thing.' His eyes were burning ferociously in the tense stillness of his face. The nightdress, wet, made her appear almost more naked than no clothes at all. It clung to the upthrust of her full breasts and followed the dip and flare of her waist and hips, as did his eyes.
Emily didn't move; she couldn't. She waited, breath suspended, her whole body in tune with the wild fire that sang through her veins. She didn't want to run, escape; she wanted… He took a step towards her, his eyes never leaving her face.
Emily almost spoke the words—a plea fighting to escape was on her tongue. He bent forward, picked up a blanket that lay on the sofa and flung it at her. Automatically she caught it.
'Get dry.' He slung a rucksack across his shoulder and with a terse, 'I'll be back before dark,' was gone.
Her, 'I hate you!' was shouted at a half-open door. Clutching the blanket, she sank down cross-legged on to the floor and let the sobs emerge.
She had to stop eventually, but when she did she found there had been nothing cathartic about the outburst; she still felt as wretched as ever. He had walked out just like that—after building up her desire to fever pitch, he could walk away. She'd been about to forget all her pride. It was like a form of insanity, this yearning; it was so powerful, so deaf and blind to the mundane precepts of self-preservation.
She stripped off her wet clothes slowly, lethargically, and tried to rub some life back into her limbs along with some circulation. Luke had gone out half saturated and half dressed himself. She quashed a brief, sharp spasm of concern, a concern that would have afforded him considerable amusement, she was sure. She felt wilted with a deep sense of anticlimax. She should be grateful for his sudden exit. Had he known she was on the brink of surrender? Is that all he wants? she wondered. To break me down? Was that the aim of his verbal assault, this refined torture? He's not actually interested in the end result; he just needs to make me admit my fatal weakness, all the lies. Then she recalled a lick of the compelling hunger in his eyes she'd been immobilised by, and the theory crumbled.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It had been the most miserable day in her memory. She had had to cope with another telephone conversation with her father, who had managed to get the telephone number, which was, she was sure, unlisted. Like Luke, he too could be persistent to the point of obsession, which was one reason why the hostilities between them would go on indefinitely, she realised.