Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series. PENNY JORDAN

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      His flesh tasted slightly salty—and wholly male. She shivered once in mute shock and then again in... in what? she tried to ask herself in the confusion that flooded her brain and her senses.

      ‘Suck it,’ she heard Luke whispering softly to her. ‘It’s sexy....’

      ‘Luke...’

      Bobbie thought she recognised that high-pitched feminine whine, but as she tried to turn her head to look down the corridor, Luke stopped her, blocking out her view as he covered her mouth with his.

      ‘Luke.’

      The voice was closer now and sharper. It was definitely Fenella’s. Bobbie tried again to jerk her body away from Luke’s.

      He certainly knew how to kiss, she acknowledged dizzily. She hadn’t been so instantly and gloriously affected by a mere kiss since she had dated her first crush in high school...and maybe not even then, she admitted to herself.

      ‘Luke, how could you do this to me?’ Fenella was screeching at what felt like only inches away from Bobbie’s left ear. ‘You know how much I love you....’

      ‘I know nothing of the sort,’ Luke returned dauntingly, having finally lifted his mouth from Bobbie’s and turned his attention from her towards Fenella.

      He still hadn’t released her, though, Bobbie realised, and if she was honest with herself, she wasn’t sure it would be a good idea to force herself away from him right now; her legs had become disconcertingly unsteady. And as for that look she had seen in Luke’s eyes when he had finally lifted his mouth from hers... Bobbie felt her stomach start to quiver.

      ‘You can’t possibly prefer her to me,’ Fenella protested in outrage.

      ‘I not only can...I do,’ Luke returned. Then ignoring Fenella, he turned back to Bobbie and said quite audibly in an amused voice, ‘I know you have this fantasy about making love somewhere public, but I do think we would be rather more comfortable in your room...in private....’

      And before Bobbie could stop him, he had pushed open her door and whisked them both inside. He proceeded to close it firmly behind him and then lock it almost before Bobbie could find time to draw breath.

      When she did she was so angry that she could hardly find the words. ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded as she pulled herself free from his arms and faced him, praying that he would put the visible trembling of her body down to her anger and not the after-affects of his kiss.

      ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ he asked her with clinical detachment.

      ‘You used me to help you get rid of Fenella,’ Bobbie accused. She shook her head and then pushed the heavy weight of her hair off her face. ‘Why not simply tell her you didn’t want her if you don’t...? My God, what kind of man are you to deliberately come up here and use me, manipulate me, plan—’

      ‘I didn’t deliberately plan anything,’ Luke interrupted her suavely. ‘I simply seized the moment and took advantage of the opportunity the circumstances offered me when I saw Fenella coming down the corridor towards us.’

      ‘You decided to make a grab for me and make out like the two of us were involved in some kind of passionate clinch ... that we were... The moment wasn’t the only thing you seized,’ she berated him furiously, ‘and if you think—’

      ‘Calm down,’ he advised her.

      ‘Calm down! You grab hold of me, manhandle me...force me into my room and then you—’

      ‘You’re perfectly safe,’ he interrupted in an unruffled voice, adding almost disparagingly, ‘For a start, you’re not my type.’

      Not his type! Bobbie’s eyes flashed warning signs of an impending major storm.

      ‘I’m relieved to hear it,’ she told him through gritted teeth, finishing trenchantly, ‘because you most certainly are not mine.’

      ‘You’re overreacting,’ she heard Luke saying as he shrugged his shoulders dismissively.

      Overreacting? Bobbie could hardly believe her ears.

      ‘You kissed me,’ she hissed.

      To her chagrin, he actually laughed. ‘Oh, come on.’ he drawled when he had finished laughing. ‘I can’t possibly be the first to do that.’

      ‘No,’ Bobbie agreed crossly. She just did not believe this; his arrogance almost took her breath away. ‘But you’re certainly the first who’s done so against my will—and the last,’ she declared forcefully. For good measure, the memory of his amused laughter driving her on to open retaliation, she added, ‘I don’t enjoy being kissed by a man I don’t like.’

      For a moment she finally thought she had got the upper hand, and at six foot plus, Bobbie had to acknowledge that not having it was something of a new experience for her and not one she suspected she could become particularly fond of, but then to her disbelief she heard him drawl, ‘No? You could have fooled me. So by whom would you have preferred to be kissed?’ he asked before she could react to the enormity of his deliberate insult. ‘Or can I guess?’ he asked her silkily. ‘I saw you watching Max earlier. He’s married, you know.’

      ‘Yes, I do know, thank you very much,’ Bobbie responded, not bothering to waste time denying his allegations, asking with acid sweetness instead, ‘Why, I wonder, is everyone so anxious for me to know that Max is married?’

      ‘You know perfectly well why,’ he told her brutally. ‘Max is an extremely predatory and highly sexed man, married to a woman who bores him and whom he quite obviously married for reasons that have nothing to do with any urgent need on his part to take her to bed.

      ‘You, on the other hand, possess that peculiar quality that quite obviously does incline Max to want to bed you, but bedding you is all he will do unless, of course, you happen to have a parcel of top-ranking judges, plus a peer and a couple of millionaires tucked away in your family tree.’

      ‘No, I don’t,’ Bobbie responded shortly, amending mentally for her own benefit, Well, at least I don’t have the hereditary peer, but she firmly resisted the temptation to give voice to such words. ‘I want you to leave,’ she told him quickly instead, looking pointedly towards the door.

      ‘Not yet,’ he returned mildly.

      Bobbie was completely nonplussed. ‘I could ring down to reception and ask them to remove you—forcibly if necessary,’ she told him.

      Once again he laughed. ‘I rather think that in this particular town and this particular hotel, my credit and reputation stand rather higher than yours.’ One dark brow rose. ‘What does anyone know about you after all, other than you appear to have made a rather unlikely friend in Joss?’

      ‘Fenella must be crazy to want to get involved with you,’ Bobbie breathed, unwittingly betraying the fact that his past history had been the subject of some of her conversation earlier in the evening. ‘And if she’s so desperate to get you,’ she said bluntly, ‘seeing you kissing me isn’t going to put her off.’

      ‘No,’ he agreed smoothly, ‘but hopefully hearing that I’ve spent the night with you will.’

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