Читать книгу The Socialite's Secret - Carol Marinelli, Carol Marinelli - Страница 11

WHAT THE HELL was he doing? Luke thought as he stood in a cold, dark, basement alley next to bins and looked up at the tiny windows.

She’d never get through them, Luke realised.

Maybe she had changed her mind, Luke decided, because it had surely been ten or so minutes that he had been waiting. He was just about to give in when he saw one red shoe poke out of a very small gap in a window, followed by one skinny, pale leg and then another.

‘I’ve got you,’ Luke said, as he guided her legs out and tried not to notice that her dress was bunching up. He moved his hands from her flesh and then held her by the hips and negotiated Scarlet’s body out of the small opening. As he dropped her down to the ground he turned her around. She was breathless and Luke could see the exhilaration in her eyes.

Not just that she was free!

Scarlet’s dress was ruched up from her rather undignified exit and she could still feel where his hands had made contact with her thighs. Now she faced Luke and, despite his very cool demeanour, Scarlet knew that he was as turned on as she was.

Her hands moved up back around his neck and she moved into him for warmth and for confirmation of his arousal.

‘Oh,’ Scarlet said.

An odd remark perhaps but she could feel him on the length of her stomach and those hands on her hips let her rest there a moment. His voice when it came was a bit ragged.

‘Come on.’

He got the ‘Oh’ comment. Luke was feeling it too.

That urge to kiss was there and a whole lot of other urges too but a stinking dark alley wasn’t at the top of his wish list and her bodyguards would no doubt realise that she was missing some time very soon. So, rather than kiss her, Luke grabbed her hand and they ran up some metal stairs and out onto a seedy street and then turned into another.

Luke hailed a black cab and, a touch breathless, they both climbed in.

He gave the name of a restaurant that he knew stayed open late, which he had been to with friends a couple of times when he’d been in London. It was nice and low-key with booths where they could tuck themselves away and he could get to know her some more.

Luke wanted that.

He really did, but as the taxi took off, the driver glanced in the rear-view mirror and must have seen just who his fare was.

‘Scarlet!’ He turned and smiled and it annoyed Luke that Scarlet smiled back and that she and the driver started talking about Anya’s performance. Was it possible to have a conversation that didn’t include her mother?

‘Just drop us here,’ Luke said, as they reached a busier street. They walked into a different restaurant from the one he would have chosen but the reaction to her was the same there and they left.