The Undoing of de Luca by Kate Hewitt Page B

you do.’ She drew in a ragged breath; his finger was still on her mouth, and she tasted the salt of his skin. ‘I see it every time you look around this place. You think it’s a hovel, a mouldering wreck like your…your mistress called it last night!’ Ellery was breathing hard and fast now; she was angry, angrier than the situation merited, and she knew why. Larenz reminded her of her father. Larenz treated Amelie—and her—like her father had treated her mother. Someone to take or leave, as he desired, with no regard for the sorrow or heartbreak he caused. Fresh rage poured through her.
    ‘Amelie is not my mistress,’ Larenz said calmly.
    Ellery snorted in disbelief, despite the ridiculous lurch of hope she felt at his words. He had to be lying. ‘You really expect me to believe that?’
    He gave a negligent little shrug. ‘I suspect you will believe what you will. I confess I had no idea you were making such assumptions about me. But, in point of fact, Amelie is the head of public relations for my company. That’s why she was here at all, trying to find a place suitable for the fashion shoot—’
    ‘You cannot expect me to believe that anyone finds this place suitable.’
    ‘Obviously you don’t.’ He dropped his voice to a lulling whisper. ‘Why are you here, Ellery? Why do you stay? I wonder if you even like this Manor of yours very much.’
    Ellery recoiled. The questions were too revealing, too close to the truth. She was not about to answer them, or give Larenz any more information that his sense of perception had already gained him.
    She tried to turn away but his finger was still against her lips, and now he touched her chin, forcing her to look at him.
    ‘Ellery, I do not pity you. I must admit, I would find it hard going to take care of this place on my own as you do, but that hardly translates to pity.’
    ‘When it sounds, looks and feels like pity, it generally is,’ Ellery retorted. She tried to jerk her chin away from Larenz’s grasp but he held on, smiling as he dipped his head so their faces—and lips—were no more than a breath apart.
    ‘I assure you,’ Larenz murmured, ‘ this isn’t pity.’ And, before Ellery could process or protest that statement, his lips met hers and he was kissing her in a way she’d never been kissed before.
    He was kissing her in a way that made her forget every resolution or regret she’d ever had.
    Ellery remained unmoving under his caress for the briefest of seconds; she was too dazed to do or think anything, her mind and body both frozen with surprise. Then her senses took over, flooding with sweet, warm pleasure, and her body spurred into action, responding of its own accord, without the permission of her still-resistant mind.
    Her arms came up and twined around Larenz’s shoulders, her fingers splaying across the taut muscles of his back, her head falling back and her body arching, as sinuous and sensual as a cat. She heard herself make a sound she never had before, part of her incredulously aware of how wanton she was being. She moaned, the sound trembling on her lips, reverberating through her body.
    Larenz deepened the kiss.
    His hands had drifted down her back and now cradled her hips, drawing her closer to him, the contact intimate and revealing. His hand moved upwards to stroke her breast through the thin fabric of her T-shirt, his lips still on hers, tasting and exploring, and the sudden nerve-tingling jolt the caress caused made Ellery stumble back, coming hard against the sink.
    The moment, hazy with desire, had now turned crystalclear with cold reality. Ellery felt sick and when she swallowed she tasted the acidic bite of bile.
    ‘Don’t—’ she whispered. Her heart thudded as if she’d run a mile and her whole body still tingled with the aftershocks of his kiss.
    Larenz smiled. Besides his hair being a bit rumpled, he looked remarkably composed. ‘Don’t what?’ he asked pleasantly. ‘Don’t stop?’
    ‘Don’t tease