Page 19 of Cipriani's Innocent Captive
On this occasion, self-denial probably made sense, but Lucas knew himself and he knew that, given the option of going down the route of what made sense or the less sensible route of scratching an itch, then the less sensible route was going to win the day hands down every time.
He also knew that he wasn’t a man who was into breaking down barriers and jumping obstacles in order to get any woman between the sheets—and why would he do that anyway? This wasn’t a game of courtship that was going anywhere. It was a case of two adults who fancied one another marooned on a yacht for a couple of weeks..
In receipt of this blunt question, presented to her without the benefit of any pretty packaging, Katy’s eyes opened wide and her mouth fell open.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I’ve seen the way you look at me,’ Lucas murmured, moving to sit on the bed right next to her, and depressing the mattress with his weight so that Katy had to shift to adjust her body and stop herself from sliding against him.
She should have bolted. His lazy, dark eyes on her were like lasers burning a hole right through the good, old-fashioned, grounded common sense that had dictated her behaviour all through her life—with the exception of those few disastrous months when she had fallen for Duncan.
The slow burning heat that had been coursing through her, the exciting tingle between her legs and the tender pinching of her sensitive nipples—all responses activated by being in his presence and feeling his cool fingers on her—were fast disappearing under a tidal wave of building anger.
‘The way Ilook at you?’
‘Don’t be embarrassed. Believe me, it isn’t usually my style to force anyone’s hand, but we’re here and there’s a sexual chemistry between us. Are you going to dispute that? It’s in the air like an invisible electric charge.’ He laughed with some incredulity. ‘You’re not going to believe this, but it’s something I can’t remember feeling in a very long time, if ever.’
‘And you think I should beflattered?’
Lucas frowned because this wasn’t the reaction he had been expecting. ‘Frankly, yes,’ he told her with complete honesty.
Katy gaped, even though she knew very well why a woman would be flattered to be the object of attention from Lucas Cipriani. He was drop-dead gorgeous and a billionaire to boot. If he made a pass at a woman, then what woman was going to stalk off in the opposite direction and slam the door in his face? He probably had a queue of them waiting to be picked.
Her lips tightened because what he saw as a flattering, complimentary approach was, to her, downright insulting.
At least the creep Duncan had had the wit to approach her a little less like a bull stampeding through a china shop.
But then, Katy concluded sourly, time wasn’t on Lucas’s side. They were here for a limited duration, so why waste any precious time trying to seduce her into bed the old-fashioned way?
‘That’s the most egotistical, arrogant thing I have ever heardin my entire life!’
‘Because I’ve been honest?’ But Lucas flushed darkly. ‘I thought you were all in favour of the honest approach?’
‘Who do you think I am?’
‘I have no idea where you’re going with this.’
‘You think that you just have to snap your fingers and someone like me will dump all her principles and come running, don’t you?’
‘Someone like you?’ But she had scored a direct hit, and he was guiltily aware that hehadindeed compartmentalised her, however much he had seen evidence to the contrary.
‘The sort of person,’ Katy informed him with scathing distaste, ‘Who needs a good, long lecture on making sure her little head doesn’t get turned by being on a big, expensive boat—oh, sorry,super-yacht—with the great Lucas Cipriani! The sort of person,’ she added for good measure, ‘Who comes with a dubious reputation as someone who thinks it’s okay to hop into bed with a married guy!’ It made her even madder to think that she had fallen into the trap of forgetting who he really was, won over by his charm and the random confidences he had thrown her way which she had sucked up with lamentable enthusiasm.
And what made hereven madderstillwas the fact that he had managed to read her so correctly! She thought she’d been the model of politeness, but he’d seen right through that and homed in laser-like on the fevered core of her that was attracted to him.
‘You’re over-analysing.’ Lucas raked his fingers through his hair and sprang to his feet to pace the cabin before standing by the window to look at her.
‘I amnotover-analysing,’ Katy told him fiercely. ‘I know what you think of me.’
‘You don’t.’ Unaccustomed to apologising for anything he said or did, Lucas now felt...like a cad. He couldn’t credit how she had taken his interest in her and transformed it into an insult, yet he had to admit to himself that his approach had hardly been handled with finesse. He’d been clumsy, and in no one’s wildest imagination could it have passed forhonesty.
‘I know exactly what you think of me! And you’ve got a damned cheek to imagine that I would be so easy that I’d just fall into bed with you because you happened to extend the invite.’
‘I... I apologise,’ Lucas said heavily, and that apology was so unexpected that Katy could only stare at him with her mouth open. He looked at her with a roughened sincerity and she fought against relenting.
Glaring, she stood up. Her good intentions of sweeping out of his cabin with her head held high, now that she had roundly given him a piece of her mind, were undermined by the fact that she was wearing next to nothing and had to hobble a bit because the grazes on her knees were killing her.
‘Katy,’ he murmured huskily, stopping her in her tracks. He reached out to stay her and the pressure on her arm where his fingers circled her skin was as powerful as a branding iron. She had to try not to flinch. Awareness shot through her, rooting her to the spot. ‘I don’t, actually, think that you’re easy and I certainly don’t take it for granted that you’re going to fall into bed with me because that’s the kind of person you are. And,’ he continued with grudging sincerity, ‘If there’s a part of me that is still wary, it’s because it’s my nature to be suspicious. The bottom line is that I want you, and I might be wrong but I think it’s mutual. So tell me...is it?’
