She held Luc’s eyes for a moment before she burst out laughing. “You’re kidding me. You interrupt my dance, you manhandle me out of the ballroom and up the steps, and then you attempt to make out with me in the hallway because you’re jealous? And you’re calling someone else a player?”
“First of all, I’m not jealous.” Wow, that almost sounded convincing. “Second, I never manhandled you, and third, you were completely on board with what was going on in the hallway. You moaned.”
Kate rolled her eyes and turned to stalk across the open suite. “I did not moan.”
Luc didn’t know which view was better, the front of Kate’s gown with the glimpse of her breasts or the back, where he could fully focus on the perfection of her shape. She stood at the desk, her hands resting on it, her head dropped forward.
“I don’t know what you want from me.” Her voice was so low he had to move closer to hear. “I won’t allow you to pull me all these directions because of your out-of-control emotions, Luc. You know how strongly I feel for you, and yet you continue to torture me.”
He was counting on those feelings to get him what he wanted. As much as he hated to admit it, he needed Kate in every way.
Before Luc realized it, he’d completely closed t
he distance between them. Sliding his hands around her waist, he pressed his palms against her still-flat stomach and jerked her body against his.
“You think you don’t torture me?” he asked, his lips brushing the side of her ear. She shivered against him. “You think seeing you dressed like this, moving your body against another man’s, isn’t pure hell?”
“Why do you care?”
“Because just the thought of you turns me inside out. Because knowing how sexy you are wearing only a smile that I put on your lips turns me on faster than anything.”
Luc eased her around and framed her face with his hands. “Because I’m so torn up over what to do about you, all I can think of is getting you out of this damn dress and seeing if this chemistry is real or if it only existed when I thought we were engaged.”
Kate’s breath caught in her throat as she stared back at him. “I can’t sleep with you as an experiment, Luc. I love you.” Her voice cracked and her eyes filled with tears. “I’m not hiding how I feel. I can’t. But I also can’t be used on a whim, whenever you get an itch you need to scratch.”
“You’re more than an itch.”
“What am I?” she whispered.
Luc couldn’t put a label to this madness that had become his life. He’d planned on seduction, but he hadn’t planned on the jealousy that had speared through him moments ago. Kate was his.
“You’re the woman I’m about to put on this desk and strip until she’s wearing nothing but that pendant. You’re the woman who is going to forget everything else but what’s happening right here, right now.”
“Sex won’t solve anything.”
“No, but it will take the edge off for both of us.”
Luc leaned closer, rubbing his lips across hers, so slowly. He reached around, found the zipper and eased it down. When the material parted in the back, he splayed his hand across her bare skin, relishing the way she trembled against him.
“Tell me you don’t want this,” he murmured against her mouth. “Tell me you don’t want to see what happens right now between us, and you can walk out that door before we get too far to turn back.”
Luc started to peel her dress away from her body. He stepped back just enough for the gown to ease down and puddle at her feet, leaving her standing in a strapless bra and matching panties, and that purple stone that rested against her flawless skin. Trailing his fingertips over the swell of her breasts, Luc smiled when she arched against his touch.
“Say the word, Kate, and I’ll stop.”
Her eyes closed as she dipped her head back. “You don’t play fair.”
“Oh, baby, I haven’t even begun to play.”
* * *
She was going to put a stop to this...then Luc had to go and say those words dripping in seduction while he tempted her with just the tips of his fingers. The man was potent. He knew exactly what to do to get her aroused, to get her wanting more.
Why was she letting this happen? He had no intention of professing his love. He wouldn’t even give her a straight answer earlier when she’d asked who she was to him.
Yet here she stood, in her heels, her underwear and goose bumps from his touch.
How could she deny him? How could she deny herself? All she wanted was this man, and here he was. If she had even a glimmer of a chance to get him to see how good they were together, she’d take it. Her heart couldn’t break any more...could it?