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.
Spinning back around, she sent Luc a glare, doing her best to ignore the bronzed, shockingly beautiful male body.
It would have been easier if she wasn’t abruptly fantasizing about running her lips over those washboard abs and allowing her tongue to tease his c*ck back to full, erect glory.
A heat bloomed between her legs, making her hands clench in frustration.
No, no, no.
Tonight was about new beginnings…not indulging her senses with Luc Angeli.
Even if her entire body ached to feel his touch.
“Why do you have to ruin this?” she growled.
He scowled, as if he didn’t know exactly what he was doing. “Ruin what?”
She pointed toward the door. “My walk-away.”
His brows arched. “Your what?”
“My walk-away.”
“Christ, Maddy.” He shoved his fingers through tousled hair, managing to look completely baffled. “What are you talking about now?”
“When you left me I allowed you to make your grand exit,” she said, torn between punching him in the nose and kissing him. “But you just had to be a bully and take mine away.”
His expression softened as he finally understood why she was so pissed, but did he move aside and allow her to walk away with some dignity?
No.
He stubbornly paced to stand directly in front of her, his hands framing her face in a gentle grasp.