Exquisite Revenge by Abby Green Page B

pout. Her T-shirt had ridden up to reveal a pale and very flat belly, her shorts sat low on slim hips.
    He reached down and plucked the earphones off her ears. Jesse moved fractionally, whispering something under her breath that Luc couldn’t quite catch. Before he’d really thought about what he was doing he’d slipped his arms under her, one under her back and the other under her legs, and lifted her against his chest.
    Jesse was aware that she felt weightless against something hard, and that it wasn’t an altogether unpleasant sensation. And then she became aware of more: a hard chest under her cheek, and someone’s warm and minty-smelling breath on her forehead. Groggily she opened her eyes, to see that she was several feet off the ground and in Luc Sanchis’s arms. She started to struggle, but it was ineffectual because she was still half asleep.
    ‘Hold still. I’m just taking you up to your bed.’
    His voice rumbled out from that chest, covered by only a flimsy T-shirt and Jesse was wide awake and as stiff as a board by the time Luc walked her into her room and deposited her on her bed. To her dismay he didn’t back away. He rested over her on his hands, the muscles in his arms far too close for comfort. As well as that huge body.
    ‘I … Thank you. I must have fallen asleep.’ Her voice sounded ridiculously husky to her ears.
    Please move away from me
, she begged silently, terrified of her body’s response, which seemed to be worse because she hadn’t yet woken up enough to censor it. That had to be why she wanted to reach out and curl her hands into the material of Luc’s T-shirt and pull him closer so that she could—
    As if hearing her chaotic thoughts, Luc
did
move closer then—and Jesse had nowhere to go as she was almost flat on the bed. Breathless, she asked, ‘What are you doing?’
    Half-musingly he said, ‘Just checking something.’
    And then he was dropping, coming closer, even though not a part of his body was actually touching hers yet. His face came so close to hers that it blurred in her eyesight and Jesse had to close her eyes. But that was worse because then she could smell him.
    She was acutely aware of the fact that she was lying on her bed, with Luc Sanchis looming over her like a marauding pirate about to ravish her. And there was nothing she could do because she seemed to have been invaded by some fatal lethargy.
    She felt the barest of touches, of his mouth to the corner of hers, before he moved down across the line of her jaw, and down again to where she knew her pulse must be beating hectically at her neck, betraying her like a beacon. She was drowning in his scent and the waves of heat from his body.
    And then suddenly he was gone, and Jesse opened heavyeyes to see Luc staring down at her with a smug look on his dark face, hands on lean hips. She only noticed then that his hair was still damp from a shower. Her insides tightened.
    She sat up awkwardly, still feeling slightly uncoordinated, and then stood to face Luc, arms crossed over her chest and the betraying sting of her rock-hard nipples.
    ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
    Luc reached out and easily pulled Jesse’s arms apart until she was standing there with her wrists manacled in his huge hands.
    She strugged but couldn’t break free. ‘Let me
go
,’ she demanded.
    ‘What I was doing,’ Luc said, in a supremely reasonable voice, ‘was proving that you desire me.’
    Jesse pulled against his hands to no avail. Anger at him for articulating her worst fear made her spit, ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’re the last man on this earth that I would desire. Maybe you were right. Maybe I
am
gay.’ Jesse would have said anything right then to get him to back away.
    ‘Really?’ Luc glanced down to Jesse’s chest, and to her abject horror and mortification she could feel her breasts swell against the confinement of her bra as if they literally ached for his touch.
    ‘I don’t think you’re gay at