One Night with His Wife(16)

Luc groaned out loud.

‘You’re like too much chocolate, you’re bad for me, and I really don’t want to be tempted to do what’s bad for me…and bad for you too.’

Luc sprang out of bed. As he crossed the room, Star kept her head down and talked faster than ever. ‘Now I could be really angry with you for phrasing your invitation to join you the way you did…but I’m making allowance for the fact that maybe you’re annoyed with me for still seeming attractive to you. And maybe you’re tired and just not used to having to ask with all these women throwing themselves at you…what are you doing?’ she squealed in disconcertion.

Luc clamped his hands to her waist and lifted her off the sofa to hold her in mid-air. ‘I am not bad for you. I am probably the sanest man you ever shared a bedroom with. Whether I’ll still be sane at the end of the summer is anybody’s guess. Think of me as a chocoholic, wholly at the mercy of ungovernable greed. Be compassionate,’ he urged thickly.

Star remembered wanting him on his knees with lust for her. Her own feet were dangling a good foot and a half off the floor. He wasn’t quite begging but he was certainly on the road to very, very keen. And there was something in those stunning dark frustrated eyes that just filled her to overflowing with sympathy and longing and…?

As he interpreted the dreamy look in her aquamarine eyes with the instant recognition of a male who had once seen no other expression but that in her gaze, a blazing smile of satisfaction flashed across his lean strong face. Her heart literally tilted on its axis.

‘Indulge yourself with me, mon ange,’ Luc invited in a husky tone that made every nerve-ending in her treacherous body sit up and sing.

Common sense made a mighty and praiseworthy attempt to be heard inside her head. ‘I can’t…I mustn’t!’

Luc laid her down on the bed with the sort of achingly tender care she had not experienced since his accidental consummation of their marriage. The thoughts in her head started seeming detached from reality.

Luc gazed down at her with glittering dark eyes of hunger and then stilled, a more grave expression forming on his darkly handsome features. ‘Obviously I will look after you and the twins for as long as you need me to do so.’

‘Look after me?’ Reality was retreating so fast for Star that nothing short of a lightning strike was likely to bring it back. She was trembling, her pulses racing. The gloriously familiar scent of him was washing over her. After the emotional devastation which had followed their lovemaking the night before, there was now a sharper, needier, more desperate edge inside her; she had given him up and now he was back. She couldn’t help but be caught up in a sense of how precious that was.

‘Naturellement…I also believe that I can find you a house to live in here in France,’ Luc mused with growling sensual huskiness, a whisper’s breadth from her parted lips.

Her braincells surged together on the belief that something enormously important was being said. Was he teasing her? A house in France? My goodness, how stupid she was being! Was he…could he be asking her to stay on at Chateau Fontaine? What else could he be doing? A tide of pure joy roared up through Star and left her feeling totally intoxicated. Her fingers slid into his luxuriant black hair and curved down to his magnificent cheekbones.

‘House here in France?’ she echoed like an obedient child, eager to encourage further revelations but scared of the big prize being withdrawn if she seemed too pushy or greedy or impatient.

‘You’d like that…’ Luc gathered, lowering his proud dark head to sensually taste her full lips.

Liked that, liked everything! The hunger he expressed with one kiss sent heat hurtling through her at storm-force potency. She kissed him back with all her heart and soul and let her palms rove with wondering delight over his powerful shoulders. Mine, mine, mine, she wanted to yell to the rooftops, but she also wanted to live out every fantasy of eighteen months away from him.

She pushed at his shoulders with as much force as she could muster, grateful enthusiasm leaping through her. She wanted to show him just how much she could learn if he would only give her the opportunity and the time to pick up more experience. Then he would never, ever think that he needed a mistress like Gabrielle Joly in his life again.

Luc fell back against the pillows, a slight hint of disconcertion in his intent dark gaze. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing…absolutely nothing!’ Star was just a little shy now, on the spot, as it were, with all those lights on while being aware that Luc was very much a sophisticate. She was absolutely terrified of doing something wrong and spoiling the moment. After all, sex had to be of crucial importance to Luc if just one night with her could persuade him to ask her to forget that theirs was supposed to be a fake reconciliation and make it a real one instead.

‘Star…?’ Luc curved a hand to her downbent head. ‘I want you to be happy. I want to make you happy—’

‘Oh…you’re making me s-super-happy, because I—’ Just adore you. She swallowed it back hastily, not wishing to show herself too keen too fast. Goodness knows, that hadn’t got her very far before. Luc needed to believe that he had to make an effort to get those kind of results.

‘You need someone like me.’ Letting his fingers lace into her hair, Luc claimed a devouring kiss that left her quivering.

Intent on ensuring that he needed her even more, Star let an uncertain hand slide down over his taut stomach, fascinated by the way his muscles suddenly clenched and his equally sudden exhalation. She shifted position and bent her head, and let the tip of her tongue trace the intriguing little furrow of hair that ran down over his stomach and disappeared beneath the sheet. He jerked with satisfying responsiveness. Damp answering warmth surged at the very heart of her.

‘Later…’ His eyes blazing gold with desire, he tugged her up to him again, a ragged edge to his dark drawl. ‘But now there’s a couple of conditions to this arrangement that I need to be sure you understand and accept.’

Arrangement? In the act of drifting down to meet that wide sensual mouth like a programmed doll, Star found herself unexpectedly stayed by Luc’s hands on her arms. ‘Conditions?’

‘I expect total fidelity from you for the duration.’

Her lashes fluttered over bewildered eyes. She was really fighting to concentrate now, because Luc was wearing that deadly serious look which always intimidated her into listening.

‘Duration?’ she repeated dutifully, rather like someone knowing only about five words of a foreign language but working hard to follow and comprehend.

‘Inevitably this attraction will burn out.’

As Star stiffened, Luc locked both arms round her, brilliant megawatt eyes intent on her now troubled face. ‘On the other hand, it could last for ages,’ he extended, quick as a flash. ‘But the other little condition I need to mention is that you’ll have to be more discreet as my lover than you were as my wife. Emilie must not know.’

Star worked out the significance of that assurance very, very slowly, because her brain was functioning very, very slowly. And when it came to working out something that crucial to her life and her happiness, and she saw with stricken insight that nothing but sheer pain and disappointment awaited her, she didn’t want to think any more.

But comprehension still marched on at supersonic speed. She had picked Luc up wrong. And wasn’t that huge misapprehension as to his meaning entirely self-inflicted? She had been pathetically eager to believe that Luc was willing to give their marriage a real chance. But he had no intention of doing that. He still wanted a divorce.

Yet, in spite of that, he could ask her to stay on in France as his lover. Lover? A euphemism. Without love, she would just be his sexual partner, his mistress. Did he really think that she was that desperate to hold onto him? Enormous hurt enfolded Star like a blanket, chilling her overheated body to ice.

‘Let go of me…’ she said unsteadily.

‘Yes…switch off that blasted phone of yours!’ Luc agreed in exasperation, and willingly released her.

‘Phone?’ Star blinked, and only then did she hear the irritating buzz. She peered blankly at her bag, which was lying in a heap where she had left it earlier.

‘I’ll do it!’ Luc offered.

‘No…no!’ Suddenly Star was flying off the bed and running to answer that phone as if her life depended on it.

In a sense it did. As the pain of renewed rejection settled on her, she just wanted to run and run from Luc. She snatched the mobile phone from her bag. Rory’s voice greeted her. The tears came in reaction then, great, unstoppable rivulets pouring down her quivering cheeks. ‘Rory…oh Rory!’ she sobbed, and raced for the bedroom door to take the call in private.





CHAPTER SIX

STAR paced the floor of the giant front hall at Chateau Fontaine. ‘I’ve got to be honest, Rory…I still care about Luc. I can’t lie about that. All I’ve got to offer you is friendship, and you’d probably be better off without it while I’m feeling like this…’

‘You’re not short-changing me.’ Rory’s sigh carried down the phone line. ‘You’ve never offered anything else; you’ve always held back.’