clearly the shameful way she had pleaded for his touch. She’d been so aroused, so aching, so desperate for release as she urged Rogan to give her what she needed…
Something he had done beyond her wildest imaginings!
She swallowed hard, her gaze no longer meeting his. ‘I must have been out of my mind.’
‘Oh, you were,’ Rogan said pointedly. ‘Completely and wildly out of your mind.’
Her eyes shot furious sparks at him. ‘Do you have to sound so—so damned triumphant?’
He gave an unrepentant shrug. ‘It’s a natural reaction in a man when he knows he’s just given his woman pleasure.’
‘I’m not your woman,’ Elizabeth gasped incredulously.
‘Just say the word and you could be,’ Rogan drawled softly, having no idea how he would handle having someone like Elizabeth in his life, but knowing that giving this woman pleasure once hadn’t been nearly enough to satisfy his own appetite for her. He wanted to make love to her again. And again. And have her make love to him, too…
The throb of his thighs ached all over again just at the thought of having the fullness of her lips about him, her tiny tongue lapping the length of him…
‘For how long?’ she came back challengingly.
Rogan shrugged. ‘For as long as it lasted.’
‘“It” being a purely sexual relationship?’
‘Of course.’
Elizabeth gave a disgusted shake of her head. ‘I have absolutely no wish to become the latest woman in what I have no doubt is the very long line of your conquests!’ She spat the words at him as though he’d just mortally insulted her.
The coldness of her rejection was like a slap in the face after Rogan’s imaginings. In which, knowing how much a woman like Elizabeth didn’t belong in his world, he had wanted to take her there anyway.…
‘Didn’t my lovemaking measure up to the “dark predator” in your book?’ he taunted sarcastically.
Colour heated Elizabeth’s cheeks at this reference to the book she had been reading the night Rogan arrived. After the way she had responded to him how could he even suggest that his lovemaking hadn’t measured up? Making love with him had been beyond anything Elizabeth could ever have imagined it to be.
‘I’m going back to the house now,’ she bit out abruptly. ‘Try not to get cut off by the tide, won’t you?’ she added with false sweetness as she rose to her feet, grabbing up her costume and holding it in front of her nakedness as Rogan made no effort to hide his admiring glance.
Rogan had no chance to make any reply as he watched Elizabeth walk away.
He sighed heavily as he fell back onto the rock, its coldness acting as a balm to the ache in his loins as he stared up at the cloudless sky.
Elizabeth obviously wanted to forget what had happened, but there was no way Rogan would ever be able to forget the way Elizabeth had caught fire in his arms just now. Her ready response to the caress of his mouth and hands on her body. The tremors of her shuddering release.
Even if he wanted to, there was no way Rogan could ever forget any of that…
‘DOING some late spring-cleaning… ?’
Elizabeth straightened to turn and stare numbly across the room at Rogan as he stood in the doorway of the library. ‘I found it like this when I came in just now.’
‘Like this’ was with dozens upon dozens of books tumbled haphazardly from the shelves onto the floor, until hardly any of the carpet remained in view.
Elizabeth had been dreading seeing Rogan again after the incident down in the cove earlier this morning. But coming into the library to find the room in complete chaos had put that embarrassment completely from her mind. All she wanted to do now was just sit down and cry in the midst of all this wanton destruction.
She dropped down heavily into the chair that sat in front of the desk. ‘Who could have done such a thing?’ She stared down at the piles of books in disarray around her. ‘And why?’
‘I think at this moment I would be more interested to know when.’ Rogan stepped carefully over the piles of scattered books as he came further into the room.
‘When… ?’ Elizabeth echoed dazedly.
He shrugged. ‘Did this happen last night, after we had gone to bed, and we just didn’t hear it? Or did someone enter the house earlier this morning while we were down at the beach?’
Some of the colour returned to Elizabeth’s cheeks at his reference to ‘earlier this morning’.
‘Is there anything missing? Stupid question,’ he instantly acknowledged as Elizabeth gave him an impatient glance. ‘I was just trying to decide whether we should tell the police it was simple vandalism or theft.’
‘Theft?’ Elizabeth repeated breathlessly, her gaze instantly going to the glass cabinet that stood against the wall near the door.
A glass cabinet that Rogan could see stood completely empty, with both of its doors smashed. ‘Is that where you put all the valuable books? The Darwin and other books you mentioned yesterday?’
Elizabeth gave a pained wince. ‘Yes. I—I thought it best to keep them all together… But I just made it easier for a thief, didn’t I?’ she realised self-disgustedly. ‘I—Do you think we should call the police?’ She frowned as Rogan’s earlier comment finally registered.
He arched dark brows. ‘Don’t you?’
‘I… Yes. Of course.’ She stood up again to run the palms of her hands down her denim-clad thighs. ‘If you’re comfortable with that?’
‘If I’m—Why the hell wouldn’t I be comfortable with it?’ Rogan demanded.
Elizabeth could no longer meet Rogan’s dark and probing gaze. ‘I just thought—’
‘I don’t think I want to know what you thought, Elizabeth!’ he bit out. ‘Did imagining I might be involved in something illegal add to your pleasure this morning?’he continued scornfully. ‘Did it make it more exciting for you?’
Elizabeth felt the colour quickly drain from her cheeks at Rogan’s tone. ‘There’s no need to be insulting—’
‘Oh, I think there is,’ he insisted. ‘What do you imagine it is I do in the States, Elizabeth? Something illegal, obviously. Gun-running, maybe? Or selling drugs?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ she snapped uncomfortably.
Elizabeth had no idea what Rogan did or was in America; how could she, when he refused to talk about himself?
He
