“Precisely.” A sweet smile curved the lush lips he’d so recently imagined wrapped around his cock, but it did nothing to warm the cold hazel eyes. She grabbed her bag. “Goodbye, Luc.”
Luc was standing in front of the door before he even realized he was moving. “I don’t think so.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Get out of my way.”
He folded his arms over his naked chest, his gaze taking in the frantic pulse at the base of her throat.
So. She wasn’t the ice queen she was pretending to be.
“No,” he said, grabbing her by the waist and tossing her over his shoulder.
He hadn’t built a financial empire without developing the ability to take command of a situation.
No matter how crazy-ass the situation might be.
“Stop,” she rasped, slamming her fists against his back. “What are you doing?”
With a smooth motion he had her off his shoulder and dumped onto the mattress. She landed with a furious gasp, tangled in her yellow silk dress.
“You’re not leaving until you tell me what’s wrong with you,” he warned.
“Wrong with me?” She shoved herself onto her elbows, glaring at him with a combination of fury and something that might have been fear. Not of him. She had to know he’d never do anything to hurt her. At least not physically. Her fear was of losing control of the situation. “You’re the lunatic who won’t let me leave.”
“I will once I have the truth.”
Her lashes swept down, hiding her eyes. “I told you the truth.”
“That you spent the past eight years plotting revenge because I hurt your feelings?” he demanded, anger still clouding his mind.
“You humiliated me,” she muttered, refusing to meet his outraged stare. “And I didn’t spend eight years plotting. As you pointed out, I’ve built a successful career. That doesn’t happen without dedicated attention to my work.”
“Exactly,” he snapped. “Which means you should have outgrown this petty need for vengeance a long time ago.”
She hunched a shoulder. “You ruined what should have been a special occasion.”
He had.
There was no denying he’d botched the entire night. Starting with showing up at the trailer in the first place. He’d known she was innocent, and that she would expect more than he could offer at that time.
Still it seemed extreme to devote eight years to payback.
In fact, it seemed preposterous.
He frowned, forcing aside the fury clouding his mind.
Madison wasn’t a bunny-burner. She was intelligent, driven, and successful on a level that only a small percentage of people ever achieved.
So why be obsessed with one lousy jackass from her past?
“No.” He gave a sharp shake of his head. His disreputable past as a womanizer meant he understood human nature. Especially when it came to the fairer sex. This wasn’t adding up. “There’s more to this.”
She turned her head to glare at the far wall, a brittle tension vibrating around her. “If you insist on this pointless conversation, would you put on some clothes?”
He snorted. “Why? Does my body bother you?”
“I’m tired of seeing you naked.”
“Odd,” he purred, his gaze sliding down her slender form. The sundress had twisted around her thighs, revealing the spectacular length of her legs. Legs that had recently wrapped around his waist as he’d pounded into her. “Just a half hour ago you couldn’t wait to see me naked,” he reminded her, taking pleasure as she flinched. “And you certainly weren’t complaining about my lack of clothes when I was buried deep inside your body and you were groaning in pleasure.”
She jerked her head back to meet his mocking gaze, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment.
“No one could ever claim you aren’t a stud who knows how to use his equipment. You’ve practiced enough, after all.”
His eyes narrowed at the hostility that edged her voice. “That’s it.”
She frowned. “What?”
“That bitterness,” he said. “It’s more than a woman disappointed at having her virginity taken by an immature son of a bitch.”
Her breath caught, her gaze becoming wary. “No. You just can’t accept that for once you are the one being used and dumped.”
“I’ve been used more times than I can count,” he dryly assured her. Women weren’t the only ones who were chosen just because of their looks. “Certainly enough times to know the difference between a woman who is just looking to scratch an itch and one who is so consumed with need for me she melts at my touch.”
“Arrogant bastard,” she muttered, scrambling off the far side of the bed and heading toward the door.
Once again he moved to block her path, lightly grasping her upper arms to halt her retreat.
“Why, Maddy?”
The hazel eyes flashed with an emotion impossible to decipher. “My name is Madison.”
“You’ll always be Maddy to me.” His voice lowered, his gaze stroking over the features that were astonishingly familiar despite their eight year separation. Almost as if they’d been held as a precious treasure in his mind. “The young beauty who wore her secondhand clothes with such pride and dignity you outshone every other girl in school. The girl who was too shy to say hello, but watched me with those big, innocent eyes. The girl who should have been crushed by the crappy hand she’d been dealt, but instead had the courage to leave behind her past and create a new life.” He gave a slow shake of his head. “Only you haven’t left the past behind. Have you?”
She tried to pull out of his grasp, her eyes clouding with something that might have been panic.
“I’m leaving.”
“Tell me what’s going on, Maddy,” he commanded, his voice harsh with frustration. “There has to be more than revenge that brought you to Vegas.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Madison whirled away from her tormentor and paced toward the center of the hotel room.
Dammit. Nothing was going right.
He was supposed to be lying in the bed, too stunned by her abrupt departure to do anything but watch her walk away in silence.
And then…
Well, her imagination hadn’t gone beyond that moment, but she’d assumed that she would return to New York; a woman at last at peace with her past.
Instead, Luc refused to let her leave the room, badgering her with questions that he had no right to ask.