Читать книгу Pregnant by the Billionaire - Ким Лоренс, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 8

‘I WON’T be a moment,’ a disembodied voice called from the adjoining room as Sin stepped into the reception area.

The photographic studio, Sin would guess, eyes narrowed as he stood patiently waiting in the outer office. It was ultra-modern, all chrome, white and black furniture, with framed photographs five feet square on the pristine white walls, also in black and white, but excellent none the less.

As he would have expected.

He already knew that Lucinda Harper-O’Neill was a woman who excelled at everything she did, including her career as a photographer.

‘I’m really sorry to keep you waiting,’ that disembodied voice—Lucinda’s voice?—called out again. ‘My receptionist has just gone to lunch…’ That voice trailed off in a strangled gasp as Lucinda Harper-O’Neill came to an abrupt halt in the doorway, her face paling even as Sin turned to look at her with coolly enquiring silver-grey eyes.

At the woman who, three nights ago, had introduced herself to him only as Luccy.

She wasn’t wearing red today, her loose silk blouse the same deep sky-blue as her eyes, and pale blue jeans hugging the slimness of her hips and long, long legs. Her blue-black hair wasn’t sexily loose today, either, but secured on her crown, leaving only a wispy fringe on her creamy forehead above those wide, disbelieving eyes, the minimum of make-up on the pale oval of her face, with no enticing deep red gloss on those pouting lips.

Luccy stared aghast at the man who stood so chillingly silent across the room as he continued to look at her with those cold, unrelenting silver-grey eyes. His silence seemed to contain an air of menace, and the expertly tailored dark grey suit he wore, with a white shirt and neatly knotted silver tie, did nothing to dispel the underlying air of a tiger stalking its prey.

Sin!

What was he doing here?

More to the point, how had he known to come to the photographic studio of Lucinda Harper-O’Neill in order to find the woman he knew only as Luccy?

Why had he even wanted to find her? Hadn’t the fact that she had so abruptly left his hotel suite three nights ago been enough of a hint that she had no interest in seeing him again?

The silence between them, icily arctic on Sin’s part, tense on Luccy’s, was becoming unbearable! But not so unbearable that she intended being the first one to break it…

Something that Sin seemed aware of as his mouth thinned. ‘Lucinda Harper-O’Neill, I presume?’ he drawled with agonising mockery.

Luccy’s eyes narrowed. Obviously she was Lucinda Harper-O’Neill. The real question was, how did he know that?

She made a dismissive movement of her shoulders as she stepped fully into the reception area to sit down behind the empty desk, determined not to be cowed by this man’s unexpected appearance at her place of work. ‘What can I do for you, Sin?’

He gave a smile completely lacking in humour. ‘The way I remember it, Luccy, you’ve already done quite a lot for me already.’

Colour warmed her cheeks, a mixture of anger and embarrassment, her eyes glittering with the former emotion as she glared up at him.

How typical of a man to refer so blatantly to what happened between them in his hotel suite three nights ago! Although it hadn’t been a memory that Luccy had found too easy to forget, either…

Although she had tried. She really had. She’d inwardly cringed with self-recrimination every time she so much as thought about the physical intimacy she had shared with him. Damn it, Sin probably knew Luccy’s body more intimately than she did!

‘Very funny,’ she snapped scathingly. ‘I thought you would have returned to the States by now?’

He shrugged those broad shoulders. ‘Something else came up.’

Something to do with finding her, perhaps? ‘Well, as nice as it is to see you again, Sin,’ she lied, ‘I really am very busy today. So if there is nothing else you need to say to me I really do have to get on with some work.’ She looked up at him challengingly.

She was certainly a cool one, Sin acknowledged with grudging admiration.

But, unfortunately for Luccy, he had no intention of leaving here today without getting answers to several pertinent questions. He’d thought of little else but finding her again, talking with her, for the last three days.

Sin had known a lot of women in his thirty-five years, had gone to bed with quite a lot of them too, and never once before had he completely lost control in the way that he had with this woman.

Or felt as angry with any of them as he had with Luccy when he’d come back from the shower that night and found her gone.

Enquiries the following morning had revealed that the table in the restaurant the evening before had been booked to Harper-O’Neill Ltd, the representative of that company joined by two guests from Wow magazine.

It hadn’t taken too long after that to ascertain that the photographer Lucinda Harper-O’Neill had represented herself; the names ‘Luccy’ and ‘Lucinda’ had been too much of a coincidence for it not to be the same person, proving that Luccy had lied to Sin when she’d told him she worked for a photographer—she was the photographer.

Unfortunately for Luccy, Sin’s enquiries hadn’t stopped there—he had also had a very interesting conversation with Paul Bridger, one of the senior executives with Wow magazine, earlier this morning. A conversation that had resulted in Sin questioning exactly when Luccy had realised he’d seemed familiar to her that following evening. Before or after he’d come across her with Bridger? After his conversation with Bridger, Sin was betting on it being before. Long before…

There had certainly been no way Sin intended returning to New York until he had seen Lucinda Harper-O’Neill again!

His movements were unhurried now as he strolled over to the chair facing the desk to lower his long length into it before looking across at her with cool deliberation. ‘Go ahead and finish up your work. I’m in no hurry,’ he assured her quietly.

Luccy frowned her frustration with his relaxed attitude—she was even more tense now than when she had first walked out of her studio and seen him just standing there. ‘I told you, I’m busy—’

‘Then I’ll wait until you’re finished,’ he persisted evenly.

There was no way that she could go back into her studio and continue working when she knew Sin was sitting out here waiting for her like that stalking, lethally dangerous tiger he so reminded her of!

‘What is it you want from me, Sin?’ she demanded impatiently.

‘Didn’t the fact that I left that night tell you that I have no interest in pursuing a relationship with you?’

It hadn’t even occurred to her that Sin would attempt to track her down in this way. And for what purpose? Surely he had to realise that she considered what had happened between them to have been a mistake on her part? A mistake she had no intention of repeating!

He relaxed back in the chair as he continued to look across at her with narrowed, unfathomable grey eyes. ‘It told me that you had—finished with me. For the moment…’

Luccy didn’t like the insult she could hear in his tone. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ she said as she stood up to glare down at him, too restless to remain seated any longer. ‘Now I really think it’s past time that you left, Mr—’

‘Formality between us seems—a little out of place, in the circumstances, don’t you think?’ he put in mockingly.

Luccy huffed her frustration. ‘I would prefer it. And what I would really prefer is for you to just leave.’

‘Not possible, I’m afraid,’ Sin returned calmly, icily. ‘Not until you’ve given me a satisfactory explanation for your behaviour three nights ago.’

‘My behaviour?’ Luccy gave him a bewildered look. ‘Weren’t you there too?’

‘Oh, yes, I was there,’ he acknowledged. ‘Suitably intrigued. But that was the point, wasn’t it?’

‘The point of what?’ Luccy was fast approaching a feeling of unreality.

They had met, made love together, an action they obviously both regretted; what else was there left for them to talk about?

‘I could always telephone the police and have you forcibly removed,’ she threatened.

‘You could try, I suppose,’ Sin agreed with an unconcerned shrug of his shoulders. ‘Although that might be a little embarrassing for you when I explain to them that this is merely a lovers’ tiff.’

‘We are not lovers,’ she told him forcibly.

His mouth twisted. ‘Oh, but we are, Lucinda—’

‘My name is Luccy!’ she cut in vehemently. ‘And, no, we most certainly are not!’

She really did have the most beautiful eyes, Sin acknowledged distractedly, of the deepest, loveliest sky-blue, and fringed with the longest, thickest black lashes he had ever seen.

In fact, as he knew intimately, this woman was beautiful all over…

Too much so for him to have simply walked away without finding out more about her. Although a part of him now wished he had just left that night as a pleasant memory. Instead of what it really was!

His mouth tightened. ‘If you really believe that, Luccy, then your memory is much more conveniently accommodating than mine.’

No, it wasn’t—because Luccy could remember every single intimate detail of their time together in this man’s hotel suite.

Every. Single. Intimate. Detail.

Her breasts tingled uncomfortably just being in the same room with him again, and the heated awareness between her thighs was distracting too.

‘Oh, please,’ she scorned. ‘Let’s not get carried away and act as if that night really meant anything to you!’

‘You think not?’

Luccy gave an impatient shake of her head. ‘Probably the only thing that bothers you about that night is that I walked away from you at the end of it!’

He became very still, eyes narrowed to steely slits as he studied her, once again looking like that tiger with the sheathed but ready-to-pounce claws. ‘Why did you do it, Luccy?’ he finally asked softly.

‘It was an impulse. A reckless impulse!’ She sighed. ‘It certainly isn’t something I’m particularly proud of—’

‘That’s something, I suppose,’ Sin acknowledged hardly.

Luccy raised bewildered brows. ‘Exactly what are you implying?’

‘Why don’t you tell me?’ he invited, no longer relaxed in his chair as he sat forward.

‘Probably because I have no idea what you’re talking about!’

Sin had never been as intrigued by any woman as he had been that night with Luccy—or Lucinda Harper-O’Neill, as she had turned out to be. Except he hadn’t been the one indulging in intrigue!

Although he somehow doubted that night had worked out quite the way Luccy had thought it would; Sin was experienced enough to know that her physical response when they’d made love had been too wild, too out of control, to be in the least bit faked.

Luccy’s expression became guarded. ‘I’ve already told you that night was a mistake, that we should both just forget about it.’

‘Is that really what you intend doing, Luccy—forgetting about it?’ Sin asked.

She gave a puzzled frown. ‘I’ve already said it is.’

Sin inclined his head. ‘So you have. The only problem is that I don’t believe you.’

‘You don’t—!’ Why hadn’t she seen how overbearingly arrogant this man really was? Luccy berated herself fiercely.

Overbearing, yes…

Arrogant, too.

But still pulse-racingly attractive in spite of all that!

Luccy abruptly pulled herself together. ‘I don’t have the time to sit here and talk nonsense with you. I have work I need to do in my studio. But I’m sure that if you insist on staying, my receptionist will be only too happy to get you a cup of coffee or something when she gets back from lunch—’ She broke off, her eyes widening at the speed with which Sin had moved so that he now stood beside her, his fingers clamped like steel about the slenderness of her wrist preventing her from moving away. ‘Let go of me, Sin,’ she ordered vehemently.

She didn’t like him touching her. Didn’t like the way she felt when he touched her.

‘Just get it over with, Luccy,’ he grated harshly. ‘Tell me exactly why you went to bed with me.’

She shook her head. ‘As you pointed out so succinctly at the time, we didn’t actually go to bed!’

He didn’t answer her, merely continued to hold her gaze as his thumb moved caressingly across her wrist at the exact point where her pulse was beating. Erratically.

Luccy turned her gaze away from his, very aware of the warm lethargy that was creeping over her body. Of the increased tingling of her breasts as her nipples pressed against the silky material of her blouse. Of the raw ache she felt pressing inside her, urging her to curve her body against the heat of this man’s powerful chest and thighs.

This man was sin incarnate…!

Luccy had convinced herself over the last few days that she had to have imagined the physical fascination this man held for her, that her behaviour in his hotel suite had been a momentary aberration, that if she ever saw him again she would once again see him only as the man who had helped her out of a difficult situation, rather than the man she had also made love with.

Unfortunately, now that she was seeing him again Luccy couldn’t deny her completely physical response to him or the memory of the intimacies the two of them had shared. The way this man had kissed and touched her. Been inside her. Given her such overwhelming pleasure with each measured stroke of his body…

Sin was caught completely unaware as Luccy wrenched her wrist from his grasp to move abruptly away from him, frowning slightly as he realised that there would be bruises later on the pale delicacy of her skin. Bruises she obviously preferred rather than suffering his touch a moment longer.

‘I don’t remember asking you for an explanation about your own behaviour that night!’ she exclaimed.

‘Maybe because you already know it was because you deliberately set out to make me want you!’ Sin rasped.

‘Past tense?’ she taunted.

‘For you or for me?’ Sin was stung into retorting, very aware of the way she had been unable to stop herself responding to him seconds ago.

And the way his own body had responded to her proximity. Was still responding to it…

‘Oh, definitely past tense as far as I’m concerned, yes!’ Luccy declared.

Sin knew she was lying. To herself as well as to him. He knew when a woman’s response to him was genuine, when her climax was out of her control—and, no matter what she might choose to tell herself now, he knew that Lucinda Harper-O’Neill had been totally out of control three nights ago.

‘Would you like me to prove otherwise?’ he challenged mildly.

Her eyes widened in alarm before she quickly masked the emotion with a challenging rise of her chin. ‘You could try, I suppose,’ she accepted. ‘If, that is, you enjoy the experience of making love to a woman who doesn’t want you?’

‘Oh, you want me, Luccy,’ he said with certainty. But he knew they were getting nowhere with this conversation, were just going round and round in circles without actually getting to the truth. And Sin was determined, one way or another, to know the truth about that night.

‘We need a little more privacy than this studio provides in order to discuss this further,’ he told Luccy evenly. ‘I’m going back to my hotel now, but I will expect you to arrive there some time later this evening.’

Her eyes widened, her tone incredulous. ‘You can expect all you like—’

‘If you don’t come to the hotel, Luccy, then I will have no choice but to come back here again tomorrow—and if I’m forced into doing that, then I will simply continue to remain here until you give me the explanation I want,’ he warned her grimly.

‘I have no idea what explanation you want from me!’

‘Oh, I think you do.’

She frowned. ‘You don’t scare me, Sin—’

‘No?’

No, this man didn’t scare her, Luccy acknowledged with a frown; but the determination in his voice was certainly daunting, and was more of a promise than a threat…

She drew in a ragged breath. ‘No,’ she confirmed firmly.

He shrugged those wide, powerful shoulders before strolling with a total lack of concern to the door. ‘I’ll expect you about seven-thirty.’ It was a statement rather than a question.

Her mouth set stubbornly. ‘I have a date this evening.’

‘Break it!’ he rasped harshly, silver eyes suddenly glittering dangerously.

Luccy gasped. At The Harmony hotel this man had been charming and incredibly sexy. He was still the latter, unfortunately, but the charm was definitely gone, leaving in its stead a man of compelling, indomitable will.

Why hadn’t she seen this cold, implacable man behind that charm three days ago?

She shook her head. ‘I don’t think I want to do that.’

His smile was chilly and humourless. ‘Oh, I really think you’ll find that you do,’ he taunted.

Luccy’s eyes widened at his continued arrogance. ‘You’re mistaken—’

‘Luccy, I believe you only have—what?—a couple of months left to run on your photography contract with PAN Cosmetics, a contract you very badly need to be renewed before you start to flounder financially, if not professionally,’ Sin cut in, knowing by the way her eyes widened that he had surprised her with his knowledge of her financial status. He intended surprising her with a lot more than that before the day was over!

‘How do you—? You had no right to delve into my financial affairs!’ Luccy exclaimed with horror as she realised that was exactly what he had done.

‘What happened between us the other evening gave me that right,’ Sin announced.

‘No!’

‘Oh, yes, Luccy,’ he ground out. ‘I’m sure you would much prefer it if your contract with PAN were to be renewed, wouldn’t you?’

Luccy blinked dazedly. How did this man know so much about her? And what business was it of his, anyway?

She glared at him. ‘And what if I would?’

Sin couldn’t help but admire the way this woman continued to defy him. Pointlessly so. But he admired her defiance anyway.

He topped her by at least seven inches, the delicacy of her bone structure showing that he probably weighed almost twice as much as she did too. Yet she was so totally, angrily defiant; she reminded him of a small cat hissing a warning at a lion to stay off her territory.

His mouth tightened. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

‘Not to me, no.’

‘It’s time to stop playing games, Luccy,’ Sin warned icily.

‘I’m not playing games!’

‘I agree, blackmail can never be considered anything as light-hearted as a game—’

‘Blackmail!’ Luccy took a shocked step back at the accusation.

He arched mocking brows. ‘Perhaps you would prefer it if I used the term “leverage”?’

‘Now you just listen to me—’

‘You have it all wrong, Luccy—you will be the one listening to me,’ Sin cautioned in a coldly chilling voice. ‘Whatever you think the other night was about, whatever leverage you think you may have gained by making love with me, I advise you to just forget it. I can assure you, I have no intention—’

‘Get out!’ Luccy ordered shakily. ‘Just get out!’

His mouth thinned. ‘Will you be coming to my hotel later?’

She glared at him. ‘Certainly not!’

Sin gave a shrug. ‘Then I guess I’m not leaving, after all.’

Her eyes sparkled like twin sapphires. ‘Are you threatening me?’ she finally breathed softly.

‘No more than you intended blackmailing me,’ Sin assured her smoothly.

She shook her head. ‘I have no absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Try a little harder, Luccy.’

Her frown was pained. ‘You’re deluding yourself if you think I have any intention of so much as seeing you again.’

Beautiful didn’t even begin to describe this woman, Sin allowed ruefully. She was stunningly lovely. Very intelligent. Extremely—arousingly—sexy. Even now…

‘I believe at the moment you’re the one who is deceiving yourself,’ he said huskily.

She blinked. ‘I beg your pardon?’

Sin felt an overwhelming compulsion to shake this woman, to leave her as confused as she had left him when he’d come out of the bathroom to find her gone.

‘I—what are you doing?’ she gasped as Sin crossed the room in two long strides, her eyes wide and wary as she looked up at him as he now stood only inches away from her.

A humourless smile curved his lips. ‘You’re trembling again, Luccy,’ he murmured. ‘Why is that?’ He quirked dark brows over taunting grey eyes. ‘Is it because you are frightened of me, after all?’ he taunted. ‘Or are you trembling because you think I might touch you again, and you’re perhaps a little—just a little—apprehensive of your own response?’

Those blue eyes flashed with temper. ‘You egotistical, arrogant son-of-a—’

‘I don’t believe insulting my mother is going to help this situation,’ he cut in.

‘I hate y—’ Her words were cut off as Sin reached out to cup either side of her face before his mouth firmly claimed hers.

His mouth was hard, demanding, punishing against hers. Sin barely registered the pummelling of her tiny fists against his chest as she fought to release herself.

She continued to fight for several long seconds before the pummelling slowly stopped and her lips softened beneath his, her body seeming to become liquid flame as it melted into his.

Dangerously so.

Luccy’s breasts were pressed against the muscled hardness of Sin’s chest, the soft curve of her stomach against his arousal, an arousal that pulsed, burned, with a rapidly spiralling need.

And then his lips softened against hers, sipping, tasting now, inciting an even deeper hunger inside her.

What was it about this man that made her respond in this way?

Luccy had absolutely no idea, but much more of this and she knew that when Cathy returned from her lunch break in a few minutes she was going to be met with the shock of seeing her employer making love to a strange man on top of her desk!

Luccy’s face was flushed, her lips slightly bruised-looking, her eyes glittering furiously when Sin finally raised his head to look down at her in slow appraisal.

‘No, I don’t believe you hate me, Luccy,’ he said. ‘And hopefully, given time, you’ll come to realise that, although I like a certain amount of—spirit, in my women, I actually prefer the way you were the other night rather than having to fight you into submission.’

She gasped. ‘You arrogant—’

‘I believe we’ve already more than adequately covered that aspect of my nature,’ he dismissed in a bored voice. ‘Seven-thirty this evening,’ he bit out firmly, taking his leave this time before Luccy could argue any further.

As he was sure that she had wanted to do.

Although he was equally unsure that Luccy would actually come to his hotel later this evening. But if she considered him arrogant now, then she certainly wouldn’t like his mood if he had to come looking for her a second time…