With a sigh, Joey flung back her arms and arched her back Her hair was spread loose over the pillow, and the feel of the flannel nightgown against her skin was another delicious sensation. After another long, lazy interval of peaceful contentment, Joey forced herself to open her eyes to face the day and the things that had to be done.
The first shock was the discovery that she was not in the bed in her room at the lodge. The second was that she was in a bed she had never seen before, in a totally unfamiliar room. The third was the realization that she was in Luke’s cabin, in his bed—and the flood of memories that came with that knowledge.
She sat bolt upright, casting the heavy layers of blankets aside. The nightgown she wore, soft and infinitely comfortable, was not hers either. Her own clothes lay over the back of a chair beside a simple desk, along with the borrowed jeans and shirt and socks. Luke had given her the night before.
The night before. The room was not particularly warm, but Joey felt an inner heat sufficient to drive away any encroaching cold. The memories came back in a rush: everything that had led up to a loss of control so complete that even now Joey felt desperately confused. What had happened? She knew the hard facts, the sequence of events, but in the light of day it all seemed like some bizarre fantasy.
She had let Luke make love to her. More—she had wanted him with a kind of savagery she hadn’t known was in her. It had never happened to her before—certainly not with Richard. Never with him. Not that hungry need, that wild passion. With Richard she had never lost control.
Wrapping her arms about herself, Joey squeezed her eyes shut as if that simple action could shut off all remembrance. Make it all as if it had never happened.
But what had happened? There were enough questions to drive anyone crazy, for a moment. Joey almost laughed at the image of herself indulging in a fit of hysterics. It was not just a matter of how she had gotten herself into that position—for the second time with him—but why he had ended it all and left her half-crazy with desire.
Again.
A clean rush of anger and indignation flooded Joey, firmly pushing chagrin and bewilderment out of the way. She clenched her teeth and felt them grinding as her jaw set. The bastard! First he’d agreed to help her, kissed her in a way she’d never been kissed before, and then abandoned her. Then, after not bothering to give her the slightest explanation, and after she’d had to go chase him down, he’d so graciously allowed her the hospitality of his cabin, only to repeat the same exercise—this time getting her to a point of such emotional vulnerability that the memory was almost beyond bearing. And then—he’d just stopped. He’d left her as if she had transformed into some kind of noxious snake—or worse.
His inexplicable behavior was bad enough, as was the constant uncertainty that seemed to be her normal state whenever she was near him. But this last blow to her pride was worst of all.
Clenching her fists in sheets still warm with the heat of her body, Joey swung her feet over the side of the bed. The floor was cold, but that was the least of her concerns. She stalked to the chair and touched her crumpled jeans and shirt. The last thing she intended to do was take any more of Luke’s “charity” or wear anything belonging to one of his past conquests. She wasn’t one of them.
She lost no time in stripping off the flannel nightgown—it also had belonged to some other woman—and began to tug on her own stiff clothing As she balanced awkwardly with one leg half in the jeans, some sixth sense warned her. It wasn’t noise or anything else so obvious that made her look up to find Luke in the doorway. The warning was too scant for her to do anything but cross her arms over her chest and glare at him with all the indignation she could muster.