Exquisite Revenge by Abby Green Page A

than not had been stressed and busy. Jesse had often wondered why they’d bothered taking kids in when they couldn’t seem to care for them properly …
    Damn him, Jesse said to herself silently. She didn’t want to
like
him. At all. She shook her head and made quick work of washing the plates—hers and Luc’s—being careful to keep her thumb out of the water.
    When she was finished she glanced at her watch and was surprised to see that it was already after ten p.m. A wave of tiredness washed over her, but Jesse felt the habitual frustration of an insomniac. If she went to bed now she would only wake in a couple of hours, and not get back to sleep until dawn.
    Instead Jesse found herself searching through the DVDs in the den, and smiled when she found some computer games which she figured belonged to the Kouros children. Jesse recalled Alexandros telling her with a wry grin that their lives were dominated by their three boys. She gave thanks for their taste in games now, and settled down to play one of her old favourites.
    When Luc had got back to his room he’d taken a shower and now lay on his bed in nothing but a towel. He tried to resist, but couldn’t: the memory of how Jesse had felt leaningagainst him when she’d been overcome with weakness at the sight of the blood.
    Her reaction had shocked him. She’d been so strong all along, despite the small signs of nerves and that damned air of vulnerability.
    He could still feel the impression of her small firm breasts. When he’d helped her to sit up straight again he’d been able to see down the loose top of her shirt to the dewy skin of her cleavage. Her breasts had looked enticingly more full than he’d thought. And he’d felt like a teenager ogling his first woman.
    He clenched his hands against the erection already growing and gritted his teeth. The first twenty-four-hour stretch of his incarceration had proved to him that this sexual awareness and frustration would only build. He was sure that it was heightened by the fact that Jesse was not his usual type, and further heightened by their enforced close proximity.
    In normal circumstances he wouldn’t find her so enthralling. But for now he did. And it would help him to achieve his aim. He would seduce her into revealing the secrets she hid in those flashing grey eyes. And then, when she was at her most vulnerable, he would have her and she wouldn’t be able to deny him anything. Namely: his freedom.
    When Luc woke around dawn he was still in the towel on the top of his bed. He was surprised as he had become accustomed to existing on three to four hours’ sleep.
    He had another quick shower and, feeling ridiculously refreshed, pulled on jeans from yesterday and a clean T-shirt, scowling at the open doors of the walk-in closet as he did so.
    He’d never had a woman buy him clothes before. He’d bought plenty of clothes
and
jewellery for women, though, and had to wonder now why they liked it so much when it made
him
feel somehow soiled. He reflected with not a littleirony that the women he lavished gifts on didn’t give any impression of feeling soiled, and yet he could well imagine the distasteful look on Jesse Moriarty’s face if he did such a thing … and he didn’t like how that knowledge made him feel.
    He closed the offending doors and padded downstairs in bare feet to the kitchen. He had to admit that under other circumstances he would properly enjoy this villa and the solitude. It was just unfortunate that he was confined within its perimeter fence and cut off from his life and livelihood.
    Luc had almost walked past the den before he saw the small foot dangling off the sofa.
    He stopped and went in, to see Jesse lying awkwardly on the couch, half-on and half-off, with earphones askew on her head. There was a console remote on the floor near her, and the TV was showing nothing but static.
    Something within him moved at the sight of her, all tousled and sleep-flushed, her mouth in a delicious