Free The Reluctant Duke by Carole Mortimer

he
hated
her…!

CHAPTER SIX
    P ERHAPS he did hate her, Lexie realised painfully, as Lucan’s already bleak expression turned to one of total disgust, his eyes black and hard as onyx, his top lip curled back almost in a snarl.
    Lexie drew in a ragged breath. ‘Lucan—’
    ‘You were right. Kissing you was a big mistake…!’ he rasped scathingly.
    Lexie moistened stiff lips. ‘I believe what I actually said was that it wasn’t a good idea.’
    Lucan’s mouth thinned. ‘Isn’t that the same thing?’
    ‘Not at all,’ Lexie rallied, as her own anger, her discomfort with the intimacies she had allowed this man, came crashing down on her. He was Lucan St Claire, for God’s sake!
Lucan St Claire!
‘I only gave you a cautionary warning—but being told by the man who has just thoroughly kissed you that it was a “big mistake” is damned insulting!’
    Lucan looked at Lexie and felt self-disgust begin to fade and irritated amusement take its place as he realised, by the angry sparkle in Lexie’s deep blue eyes, the flush to her cheeks and the antagonistic tilt of her stubbornly pointed chin, that she really was insulted by what he had just said.
    She wasn’t angry because Lucan had kissed her. Orembarrassed by the fact that her bared breast had been in the heat of his mouth. Nor was she outraged because he had worked his arousal against that swollen and sensitive place between her legs until she groaned and moved against him in her need for release.
    Oh, no, it would be too much to expect the unusual, the unique Lexie Hamilton to feel any of those natural reactions to the intimacies they had just shared!
    Whereas he—damn it—he was a man who was always in control. Who had always preferred the comfort of a bed when he made love to a woman.
    Not with Lexie, apparently. Oh, no. With Lexie he had almost made love in the kitchen at Mulberry Hall. If he hadn’t stopped when he had then they would probably have finished making love on the table or the flagstone floor.
    Lucan gave a slightly bemused shake of his head as he acknowledged that Lexie was like no other woman he had ever met. Like no woman he had ever
wanted
to meet!
    Her long and beautiful black hair had come loose from its plait and now fell in curling and wild disorder about her slender shoulders, and her mouth—that gloriously delicious and sensual mouth—was slightly swollen, the skin beneath slightly reddened from the passion of his kiss.
    Lucan’s expression darkened as he reached up to gently run the soft pad of his thumb across the mark of that abrasion on her ivory skin. ‘I think I need a shave,’ he murmured.
    Lexie’s eyes widened indignantly. This man had just kissed her until she was almost senseless, then insulted her, and all he could say now was—‘Is that it? No apology? No “it won’t happen again”? Just “I think I need a shave”!’
    He looked down his long, arrogant nose at her. ‘I don’t feel the need to apologise for something I know you enjoyed as much as I did.’ His expression darkened. ‘Neitherdo I believe in making promises I’m not sure I can keep,’ he added softly.
    Lexie stared at him incredulously for several long seconds before glaring up at him. ‘You over-confident, pompous, unmitigated—’ She broke off, too angry to be able to come up with a word bad enough to describe his attitude.
‘Ass!’
she finally concluded furiously as she stepped away from him.
    ‘Very original,’ Lucan drawled dryly.
    Lexie’s eyes narrowed. ‘I doubt you would have appreciated the word I really wanted to use!’
    He gave a shake of his head, his expression bleak. ‘It can’t be any worse than the things I’ve already called myself.’
    She eyed him frustratedly. ‘Believe me, if there was some way I could leave here tonight then I would! As there isn’t… I’m going upstairs to bed instead.’ Lexie grabbed her shoulder-bag from the back of the chair. ‘Do you have any preference as to which bedroom I