Читать книгу 200 Harley Street - Lynne Marshall - Страница 21

TO THE LETTER!

Lizzie stood back from the mirror. She had followed Leo’s order to the letter to enjoy herself and had taken Melinda’s advice, because never in month of Sundays would she have even tried on this dress and coat, and that was aside from the price tag!

It was either beige or pink, Lizzie couldn’t decide which. The fabric was the softest velvet and it clung everywhere and was so low at the back she had been worried it bordered on indecent.

‘It’s stunning,’ Melinda had assured her.

It was. And seeing it with her new hair and make-up, Lizzie couldn’t believe that the woman in the mirror was really her.

Her body had been waxed and massaged and that had been just the start. Her brown hair had been curled and pinned up and her make-up was amazing—Lizzie’s eyes had been dressed in smoky grey eye shadow and her lips … well, she couldn’t decide if they were beige or pink either.

She was shaking, she was nervous and excited too, but that had more to do with the fact that in ten minutes she’d be facing Leo. And then there was the question of dancing with him …

Stop.

She didn’t need an evening bag, she needed a table-tennis bat to flick away the thoughts about dancing with him. Even spraying on her perfume, she imagined his face in her neck, inhaling it …

No.

Again she said it to herself.

This week had been awkward enough and it had just been a kiss. Imagine if they …

The buzz of her intercom had her heart beating faster and Lizzie didn’t know whether she should say she was on her way down or invite him up.

‘I hope I’m getting asked in?’ Leo said, making the decision for her.

‘Of course,’ Lizzie said. ‘After all, you’re my landlord.’

She opened the door and Leo rather wished she’d settled for her usual black dress—it would have certainly been safer.

‘Oh, my!’ he said, and Lizzie squirmed at the approval in his eyes.

‘Oh, my, to you too!’ He was wearing a tux and he was so clean-shaven she wanted to put her hand to his jaw, or run her fingers through his silken black hair, or just smother his collar in her lipstick.

‘Come through …’ Lizzie settled for that instead.

He passed the coat and boots that she wore for walking to work and followed her, getting the sight of her bare back, and she could feel the tingle the length of her spine as it blistered under his gaze.

‘Do you want a drink?’ Lizzie had splurged and bought some decent whisky, just in case he wanted one, but Leo declined.

‘Not for me.’ He stood by the fireplace and saw the pictures of her family and friends, and small talk was supremely difficult when all he wanted was to pull her into his arms.

‘I’m ready whenever …’

‘No rush,’ Leo said. ‘We’ll be in plenty of time.’ He tried again. ‘Your dress is lovely.’

‘Thank you,’ Lizzie said. ‘And thank you for …’ She stopped when Leo gave a brief shake of his head. ‘I’m not sure if it’s beige or pink.’

He didn’t answer.

‘Look at my shoes.’ She lifted her dress a fraction and Leo looked at her ankles and the smooth skin of her calves rather than the shoes, and he couldn’t manage small talk. If he did it would be something like, ‘Fancy a quickie before we go?’ She was wiggling her feet and he wanted the shoes off, he wanted that foot in his mouth and, before he put his own in his, he glanced at his watch. ‘Actually, I think we should get going.’

He helped Lizzie on with her coat as much as he could without touching her, smelling her, turning her round or just taking her against the wall, and then there was the agony of the lift and he couldn’t not touch her.

‘Rapunzel,’ Leo said, gently lifting a curl.

‘She had long blonde hair,’ Lizzie corrected him. His fingers weren’t even touching her skin but she could feel their energy and warmth and she tried to joke her way out of it. ‘You need to go on a fairy-tale workshop.’

She did feel like something out of a fairy-tale, though, as the driver came round and she climbed into the back and then sat with Leo as the car swished through the London streets. Never had she looked more beautiful and neither had Lizzie.

‘The Christmas lights are gone,’ Lizzie said. ‘If I’m still living here next year, I’ll be able to—’

‘Why wouldn’t you still be living here?’ Leo asked, and she just kept on looking out of the window because the answer was an impossible one to give.

‘Lizzie?’

She was aware of the glitter of tears in her eyes, a combination of tension and passion and the absolute unfairness of it all. God, she wished she’d met him in a bar or something—why did he have to be her boss? But, then, she didn’t frequent the type of bars that Leo Hunter did, and if she had, Lizzie frantically thought, she’d still have run a mile if someone as drop-dead gorgeous as Leo had approached her.

‘Are you okay?’

‘A bit nervous,’ Lizzie said, which was a lie. His presence meant she’d forgotten her nerves about the ball.

‘You’ll be fine.’

She was more than fine, Leo soon realised. Heads turned for all the right reasons. Lizzie was as in demand as he was because, as soon as he introduced her as a work colleague, you could see male smiles widen.

‘Bit of a scare for you this week.’ A woman who’d introduced herself as Matilda batted her eyelashes at Leo.

‘A scare?’ Leo frowned, pretending he had no idea what Matilda was referring to.

‘Of course it all turned out well.’

But Leo remained noncommittal and, as the conversation progressed, Lizzie realised Matilda was, in fact, a journalist and of course Leo would never talk about his patients. He did, though, Lizzie noticed, give a subtle nod for Lexi to come over. She saw too his tight smile as a friend patted him on the back and said he’d never doubted him for a moment.

‘His name should be Janus,’ Leo said when they were briefly alone. ‘He was one of the experts that chose not to be named but were only too happy to talk to the press.’ Though he did smile a little while later when Janus asked Lizzie to dance and she politely but rather publicly declined him.

She didn’t decline everyone, though.

‘So you’re not …?’ one particular rake checked with Leo, before taking Lizzie off to dance.

Unfortunately not, Leo thought as he did duty dances with the women he must.

Lizzie danced and danced, just not with the man she wanted to be with.

It was work, Lizzie reminded herself, making her way over to the bar, where she sat on a stool and watched the room, though her eyes were drawn all too often to Leo.

He worked the room so well and, Lizzie realised, apart from a very occasional sip, more often than not he replaced his full glass and got a fresh one. Lizzie glanced over and saw Kara and Declan. Kara looked amazing in a long gold dress, her blonde hair in curls and worn loose. Declan was stunning in the requisite tuxedo. They were doing tequila shots at the bar and Lizzie was about to go over and say hi but, almost as soon as she thought it, Lizzie realised that they didn’t look as if they’d appreciate being disturbed!

She had never noticed anything between Kara and Declan till now.

She watched as they headed to the dance floor and just as she was starting to feel like a wallflower an astonishingly good-looking man asked her to dance.

It was just the wrong good-looking man, though, Lizzie thought. Her eyes drifted around the room, seeking Leo, but instead they landed on Declan and Kara, locked in a searing kiss, and Lizzie wanted to be as bold as them, to not care what tomorrow might bring.

Or maybe they did care because suddenly Kara left, leaving Declan standing on the dance floor, a what the hell was that look on his face.

Lizzie couldn’t dwell on others, though, all she could think about was Leo and, no, she didn’t want a second dance with this good-looking stranger. Politely she declined and as she did so Lizzie turned, and it was to Leo. Finally she got to dance with the one she wanted.

‘You look as if you’re enjoying yourself,’ Leo said to her hair.

‘I am.’

‘Not so scary after all.’

It wasn’t, Lizzie thought. She liked being back in his arms.

All the self-enforced warnings were diminishing—for both of them.

Leo could feel her spine beneath his hand and he resisted the urge to run the pad of his fingers along it.

Then he stopped resisting.

She felt her stomach curl over as his fingers lightly dusted her back and then hesitate, and she breathed deeply and sank further into him which was permission for Leo to gently resume his exploration.

‘I’ve wanted you all night,’ Leo said.

‘I’m here now.’ She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, feel the wobble in her voice as she tried to keep it light.

‘I wasn’t just talking about dancing.’

Leo didn’t need to look down to know that Lizzie was blushing—he felt the heat race up her exposed back and he stroked the blushing skin with the pads of his fingers, his touch subtle yet almost indecent.

‘What’s stopping us, Lizzie?’

‘Your track record,’ she admitted. ‘My job.’

‘It would never jeopardise your job,’ Leo said. ‘But I can’t do a thing about my track record. It’s there for a reason—I don’t do for ever.’ He thought how best to proceed. ‘Lizzie …’ He had to make things clear. He had to do the ‘I’m a bastard nothing will ever come of it’ talk, right here right now, but she halted him.

‘Leo, I’m thirty-two, I don’t need to hear the warnings.’

‘They’re not warnings, Lizzie. They’re certainties.’

‘Heeded. This,’ she said, ‘is going nowhere except bed.’

‘You’re sure?’

Till now, sex had been pleasant at times, at others a chore.

With Leo she knew she was heading towards bliss.

She felt bold, she felt wanton, she felt sexy. Francesca was right—it wasn’t just a dress and make-up, tonight she was in costume. Tonight, Lizzie realised, she could be anyone she wanted to be. And she wanted to be a woman who could do the no-strings thing, who could give in to want because … she could.

And so she answered him.

‘There’s nothing stopping us.’

She felt the warmth of his body as he pulled her in closer and closed her eyes in decadent bliss as they both stopped fighting their attraction.

‘I know what colour your dress is.’ His mouth was close to her ear and she wanted his tongue, her eyes closing as Leo stopped holding back and it was sublime. ‘It’s the colour of your skin when you get out of the bath.’ His fingers were still working her back. ‘Were you in the bath that night I called?’

‘You know that I was.’

‘I did know and I was right about Rapunzel,’ Leo said, ‘because all I want to do is let down your hair.’

She felt almost dizzy, her body a hand grenade, and as his hand moved to her hair, if he pulled even one pin Lizzie thought she might just explode.

As might Leo.

‘We’ve got to go.’

‘It’s too soon,’ Lizzie said.

‘I don’t care.’

For the first time in forever his focus wasn’t on the Hunter Clinic; for the first time in forever there was a woman who came before it.

Even if just for tonight.

They didn’t care about the driver and they were too far gone for seat belts. They were a tangle of arms and tongues, both desperate to get to Leo’s home. And to tomorrow’s shame for Lizzie, she had no idea if there was anyone in the lift when they entered because, quite simply, their lips could not be parted.

Keys were very inconvenient things.

Condoms too.

They were at his door, Lizzie patting him down as if she was about to arrest him, Leo honestly wondering if they were going to make it inside and would it matter if they didn’t, and then sense drifted in and he pulled out the key.

‘Here …’ He put the key in upside down, for his next attempt he used the Harley Street one, until finally he located the correct key and they were in.

Then a triumphant Lizzie located the second essential item, if Leo wanted in!

Still they kissed. She held his face in her hands and for a moment she moved him back just a fraction from her and met his eyes.

Leo thought she was about to halt things, to say too fast, too soon, but he smiled at her stern warning.

‘If you tear my dress …’

It was her favourite thing in the world, apart from this. She shrugged off her coat and then as his hands roamed her body Lizzie’s were equally as direct. Unzipping him, freeing him, she held him in her hands for a brief slice of time, and as she slid the condom down his delicious length it was as if the word shy had never been invented. Lizzie actually felt as if she knew who she was as he lifted her dress and hauled down her panties.

‘I’ll fall …’ Lizzie said, not exactly used to being taken up against a wall.

‘I won’t let you.’

He lifted her onto him and she wrapped her legs around him. It had to be fast, they were both on the edge of orgasm and there could be no other way, but as he filled her, as she wrapped her legs tightly around him and he pressed her down, Lizzie knew it had had to be this way for another reason—there was no changing their minds now, whatever the future, they had a past. There was no turning back.

‘Lizzie.’ His teeth were gritted in an effort to hold on but holding her buttocks in his hands, hearing the squeal escape her throat as she started to come, Leo gave in. She felt him swell further inside and Leo heard the tiny scream that had his seed race to fill her.

Lizzie had never felt anything like it—had never been taken with such force and passion. As she came she was less than a lady and when he lowered one of her legs, as her lovely shoe hit the floor, he was able to thrust more deeply. So deeply he demanded an encore, her orgasm dashing back from the wings to take centre stage. So deep and long was the second time Leo was able to open his eyes to watch, before kissing her back to the world.

By the time she walked, on shaky legs, into his lounge, they were already lovers.