Читать книгу From New York With Love: Rumours on the Red Carpet / Rapunzel in New York / Sizzle in the City - Кэрол Мортимер, Nikki Logan - Страница 11
ОглавлениеLUCIEN’S HUMOURLESS SMILE became a grimace as he saw the expression of horror on Cyn’s face. ‘Don’t worry. My decision to fire Miller wasn’t because of anything he did or said to you. Although that was certainly a side issue in the amount of satisfaction I felt doing it.’
‘Then why did you fire him?’ She looked totally bewildered.
Lucien gave another impatient glance at his wristwatch. ‘Look, can we continue this conversation later? Possibly over dinner? I really do have to leave for my appointment now.’ He moved around his desk to pick up the file he needed for his meeting before putting it inside his black leather briefcase and snapping it shut. ‘Cyn?’ he prompted irritably as she stood as still as an Easter Island statue.
He was more than a little irritated with himself for having suggested the two of them have dinner together when he knew that the best thing for both of them was not be alone together again. His response to Cyn—as he had proved a short time ago!—was so different than to any other woman he had ever met. She was so different from those preening, self-centred, high-maintenance women he usually dated...
‘Hmm?’ She looked across at him blankly.
‘Dinner? Tonight?’ he repeated shortly.
‘I—no.’ She shook her head from side to side. ‘You’ve been very kind to me, but—’
‘You consider my almost making love to you just now as being kind to you...?’ Lucien bit out derisively.
Her cheeks flushed a fiery red. ‘No, of course not—’
‘Dinner. Tonight,’ he said impatiently. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been late for a business appointment. Business always came first with him, pleasure second. And making love to Cyn just now had been pure pleasure. ‘We can eat at the hotel if that would make you feel...safer?’ he taunted.
* * *
Thia easily heard the mockery in Lucien’s voice. A mockery she knew she deserved.
So Lucien had kissed her. More than kissed her. She wasn’t a child, for goodness’ sake, but a twenty-three-year-old woman, and just because this was the first time that anything like this had happened to her it was no reason for her to go off at the deep end as if she were some scandalised Victorian heroine!
Besides which, it was obvious Lucien wasn’t going to tell her any more now about why he had fired Jonathan, and she desperately wanted to know.
Was it even possible for him to dismiss Jonathan so arbitrarily? Admittedly this was Lucien Steele she was talking about—a man who had already proved how much he liked having his own way—but surely Jonathan had a contract that would safeguard him from something like this happening. Besides which, Network was the most popular series being shown on US television at the moment; sacking its English star would be nothing short of suicide for both the series and Steele Media. And Lucien was Steele Media.
‘Fine, we’ll eat at Steele Heights,’ she bit out abruptly. ‘What time and which restaurant?’ There were three of them, but obviously Cyn hadn’t eaten at any.
Lucien moved briskly from behind his desk, briefcase in hand, and took hold of her elbow with the other hand. ‘We can talk about that in the car before I drop you off at the hotel.’
‘I’m not going back to the hotel just yet.’ Thia dug her heels in at being managed again, even as she recognised that familiar tingling warmth where Lucien’s fingers now lightly touched her arm. ‘I’m going to the Empire State Building this afternoon.’
He raised dark brows. ‘Why?’
‘What do you mean, why?’ She looked up at him irritably. ‘It’s a famous New York landmark, and I’ve been here five days already and not managed to go to the top of it yet.’
Lucien’s mouth twisted derisively. ‘I was born in New York, have lived here most of my thirty-five years, and I can honestly say I’ve never been even to the top of the Empire State Building.’
‘You could always come with me—’ Thia broke off as she realised the ridiculousness of her suggestion. Of course Lucien Steele, zillionaire entrepreneur, didn’t want to do something as mundane as go with her to the top of the Empire State Building any more than Thia really wanted him to accompany her. Did she...? No, of course she didn’t. She had succumbed to this man’s sexual magnetism enough for one day—made a fool of herself enough for one day—thank you very much.
‘Forget it,’ she dismissed, with a lightness she was far from feeling. She wasn’t one hundred per cent sure what she was feeling at the moment, or thinking. She was too tremblingly aware of Lucien having kissed her just minutes ago to be able to put two coherent thoughts together. ‘You said you had a meeting to get to?’ she reminded him.
Yes, he did. But strangely, just for a few seconds, Lucien had actually been considering cancelling his business meeting and going with Cyn to visit the Empire State building instead. Unbelievable.
Zillionaires didn’t get to be or stay zillionaires, by playing hooky from work to go off and play tourist with a visitor from England. Even if—especially if—that visitor was Cyn Hammond. A woman who apparently had the ability to make Lucien forget everything but his desire to be with her and make love to her.
Something that had definitely not happened to him before today.
But, damn it, Cyn really did look like a tempting stick of candy in that pink top... And it took no effort at all on Lucien’s part to imagine the pleasure of licking his tongue over every inch of that soft and silky flesh...
He nodded abruptly. ‘I can drop you off at the Empire State Building on my way.’
‘It’s such a lovely day I think I’d rather walk,’ she refused lightly, lifting a hand in parting to Ben as they passed through his office and out into the hallway before stepping into the private elevator together.
Just the thought of Cyn wandering the streets of New York dressed in nothing more than that skimpy pink top and those body-hugging denims was enough to bring a dark scowl back to Lucien’s brow. ‘Do you have any sense of self-preservation at all?’ he rasped harshly as he released her elbow to press the button for the elevator to take them down to the ground floor.
‘It’s the middle of the day, for goodness’ sake!’ She glanced at him with those cobalt blue eyes through lushly dark lashes.
Lucien eyed her impatiently. ‘Remind me to tell you later tonight about the statistics for daytime muggings and shootings in New York.’
She chewed on her bottom lip. ‘You still have to tell me what time I’m meeting you this evening, and at which restaurant in the hotel,’ she said firmly.
‘Eight o’clock.’ He frowned. ‘Go down to the ground floor. I’ll have someone waiting to show you to the private elevator that will bring you directly up to the penthouse apartment.’
Her eyes widened. ‘The penthouse? You live in an apartment at the top of the Steele Heights Hotel?’ Thia was too surprised not to gape at him incredulously.
He gave a smile of satisfaction at her reaction. ‘I occupy the whole of the fiftieth floor of Steele Heights when I’m in New York.’
‘The whole floor?’ she gasped. ‘What do you have up there? A tennis court?’
‘Not quite.’ Lucien smiled tightly. ‘There is a full-sized gym, though. A small pool and a sauna. And a games room. A small private cinema for twenty people.’ He quirked a dark brow as Cyn gaped at him. ‘Changed your mind about having dinner with me at the hotel this evening?’ Those silver eyes mocked her.
It didn’t take too much effort on Thia’s part to realise Lucien was challenging her, daring her. He expected her to baulk at agreeing to have dinner with him now that she knew they would be completely alone in his penthouse apartment. And good sense told Thia that it would be a wise move on her part not to rise to this particular challenge, to just withdraw and concede Lucien as being the winner.
Unfortunately Thia had never backed down from a challenge in her life. She wouldn’t have been able to survive the death of her parents or worked as a waitress for the past five years in order to support herself through uni if that was the case. And she had no intention of backing down now, either.
Even if she did suspect that Lucien wasn’t just challenging her by inviting her to his apartment and that the main reason he wanted them to dine in the privacy of his apartment was because he didn’t want to be seen out with her in public.
She knew enough about Lucien Steele to know he was a man the media loved to photograph, invariably entering some famous restaurant or club, and always with a beautiful model or actress on his arm. Being seen with a waitress student from London hardly fitted in with that image.
‘Fine.’ She nodded abruptly. ‘Eight o’clock. Your apartment.’
‘No need to dress formally,’ Lucien told her dismissively. ‘Although perhaps something a little less revealing than what you’re currently wearing might be more appropriate,’ he added dryly.
‘It’s a crop top, Lucien. All women are wearing them nowadays.’
‘None of the women I’ve escorted have ever done so,’ he assured her decisively.
‘That’s your loss!’ Thia felt stung by Lucien’s casual mention of those women he’d escorted. Which was ridiculous of her. The fact that they were eating dinner at his apartment told her that this wasn’t a date, just a convenient way for the two of them to be able to finish their conversation in private. Well away from the public eye...
‘Yes.’ He bared his teeth in a wolfish smile as the two of them stepped out of the lift together, causing Thia to blush as he reached out to grasp one of her hands lightly in his before raising it to skim his lips across her knuckles. ‘Until later, Cyn.’
Thia snatched her hand from within his grasp, aware of the stares being directed their way by the other people milling about in the lobby of Steele Tower even if he wasn’t. ‘I hope you’re enjoying yourself,’ she hissed, even as she did her best to ignore the tingling sensation now coursing the length of her arm. And beyond...
‘It has its moments.’ His eyes glittered with satisfied amusement as he looked down at her.
Thia glared right back at him. ‘You could have told me your reason for firing Jonathan in the time we’ve been talking together.’
‘I do things my own way in my own time, Cyn,’ he bit out tersely. ‘If you have a problem with that, then I suggest—’
‘I didn’t say I had a problem with it,’ she snapped irritably. ‘Only that—oh, never mind!’ Lucien had the ability to rob her of her good sense, along with any possibility of withstanding his lethal attraction.
A lethal attraction that affected every other woman in his vicinity, if the adoring glances of the receptionists were any indication, as well as those of the power-dressed businesswomen going in and out of the building.
All of them, without exception, had swept a contemptuous gaze over the casually dressed Thia—no doubt wondering what a man like Lucien Steele was doing even wasting his time talking to someone like her—before returning that gaze longingly, invitingly, to the man at Thia’s side. One poor woman had almost walked into a potted plant because she had been so preoccupied with eating Lucien up with her eyes!
It was a longing Thia knew she was also guilty of.
Challenge or no challenge, she really shouldn’t have agreed to have dinner alone with him in his apartment this evening...
* * *
Thia looked in dismay at the chaos that was her bedroom in the suite on the tenth floor of the Steele Heights Hotel. Clothes were strewn all over the bed after she had hastily tried them on and then as quickly discarded them. Finding exactly the right casual outfit to wear to have dinner with the dangerously seductive Lucien Steele in—oh, hell—fifteen minutes’ time was proving much more difficult than she had thought it would. And she hadn’t dried her hair yet, or applied any make-up.
She had been late getting back to the hotel as the long queues at the Empire State Building had meant she’d had to wait in line for a long time before getting to the top. It had been worth the wait when she finally got there, of course, but by that time it had been starting to get late.
She’d also had the strangest feeling all afternoon that she was being followed...
Lucien’s warnings earlier had made her paranoid. That was more than a possibility. Whatever the reason, Thia had felt so uncomfortable by the time she’d come down from the top of the Empire State Building and stepped back out into the street that she had decided to treat herself and take a taxi back to the hotel.
She had taken out her laptop and gone online for half an hour once she was back in the hotel suite, determined to know at least a little more about the enigmatic Lucien Steele before they met again this evening.
Unfortunately the moment she’d come offline and lain back on the bed she had fallen asleep, tired from her outing, and also exhausted from the previous sleepless night she had spent at that awful hotel. No surprise, then, that she hadn’t woken up again until almost seven-thirty!
Which now meant she was seriously in danger of being late—and she still hadn’t found anything to wear that she thought suitable for having dinner with a man like Lucien Steele!
Oh, to hell with it. Black denims and a fitted blouse the same colour blue as her eyes would have to do; she simply didn’t have any more time to waste angsting over what she should or shouldn’t wear to have dinner with a zillionaire. And the blue blouse also had the benefit of having elbow-length sleeves, meaning those bruises Jonathan had inflicted on her arm the previous evening, which had so angered Lucien earlier, would be safely hidden from his piercing gaze.
Jonathan....
If she concentrated on the fact that it was only because she wanted to know exactly why Lucien had decided to fire Jonathan from Network that she had agreed to have dinner with Lucien—even if she no longer believed that!—then maybe she would be able to get through this evening.
The butterflies fluttering about in her stomach didn’t seem to be listening to her assurances as she stood alone in the private lift minutes later, on her way up to the penthouse apartment. Her hair still wasn’t completely dry and her face felt flushed. No doubt it looked it too, despite her application of a light foundation.
The manager of the hotel himself had been waiting on the ground floor to show her into the private coded lift. The sheer opulence of the lift in which she was now whizzing up fifty floors to the penthouse apartment—black carpet, plush bench seat along one mirrored wall, a couple of pot plants—and the thought of the overwhelmingly sexy man who would be waiting up there for her were so far beyond what was normal for Thia, was it any wonder she was so nervous she felt nauseous?
Or maybe it was just the thought of being alone with Lucien again that was making her feel that way... Her online snooping about him earlier had informed her that he was thirty-five years old—something Lucien had already told her—and the only child of New Yorker Howard Steele and Parisian Francine Maynard. Educated at private school and then Harvard, he had attained a law degree and in his spare time designed a new gaming console and graphics for many computer games, enabling him to make his first million—or possibly billion?—before he was twenty-one. That was something else Lucien had already told her. He had taken full advantage of this success by diversifying those millions into any number of other successful businesses.
There had also, depressingly, been dozens of photographs of him with dozens of the women he had escorted at some time or other during the past fifteen years: socialites, actresses, models. All of them, without exception, were extremely beautiful, as well as being tall and blond.
And this was the man that Thia, five-foot-two, raven-haired and merely pretty, had agreed to have dinner alone with this evening...
Knowing she simply wasn’t his type should have made her feel less nervous about the evening ahead. Should have. But it didn’t. How could it when she only had to think of the way Lucien had kissed her so intensely this afternoon, of his caressing hands on her bare midriff—and higher!—to know that he had felt desire for her then, even if she was five-foot-two and raven-haired!
After all her apprehension, the man who had caused all those butterflies in her stomach was nowhere to be seen when Thia stepped out of the lift into the penthouse apartment seconds later. The apartment itself was everything she had thought it would be—white marble floors, original artwork displayed on ivory walls. She walked tentatively down the hallway to the sitting room in search of Lucien. It was a spaciously elegant room, with the same minimalist white, black and chrome décor of Lucien’s office. Had the man never heard of any other colours but white, black and chrome?
The view from the floor-to-ceiling windows was even more spectacular than the one from the Carews’ apartment—
‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here to greet you when you arrived, Cyn. My meeting ran much later than I had anticipated and I only got back a few minutes ago.’
Thia turned almost guiltily at the sound of Lucien’s voice, very aware of the fact that she had just walked into his private apartment and made herself at home, only to stand and stare, her mouth falling open, blue eyes wide and unblinking, as she took in his rakishly disheveled and practically nude appearance.
Lucien had obviously just taken a shower. His black hair was still damp and tousled, a towel was draped about his shoulders, and he wore only a pair of faded blue denims sitting low down on the leanness of his hips, leaving that glistening bronzed chest and shoulders—the same ones Thia had fantasised about earlier this afternoon!—openly on view. Revealing he was just as deliciously muscled as she had imagined he would be. His nipples were the size and colour of two dark bronze coins amongst the dusting of dark hair that dipped and then disappeared beneath the waistband of his denims.
If Lucien had wanted to lick her all over this afternoon then Thia now wanted to do the same to him... Dressed in those low-slung denims, with his bronzed shoulders and chest bare, overlong blue-black hair sexily dishevelled, his bare feet long and elegant, Lucien definitely looked good enough to eat!
‘Cyn...?’ Lucien eyed her questioningly as she made no response.
Or perhaps she did...
She was wearing another pair of those snug-fitting denims this evening—black this time—with a fitted blouse the same electric blue colour as her sooty-lashed eyes. The material of the blouse was so sheer it was possible for Lucien to see that she wore no bra beneath it. Her breasts were a pert shadow, nipples plump as berries as they pressed against the soft gauzy material. Hard and aroused berries...
‘I—er—shouldn’t you go and finish dressing...?’
Lucien dragged his gaze slowly, reluctantly away from admiring those plump, nipple-crested breasts to look up into Cyn’s face, instantly noting the flush to her cheeks and the almost fevered glitter to her eyes as she shifted uncomfortably from one booted foot to the other. As if her breasts weren’t the only part of her body that was swollen with arousal...
Instead of doing as she suggested Lucien stepped further into the sitting room. ‘I’ll get you a drink first.’ He threw the damp towel down onto a chair as he strolled over to the bar in the corner of the room. ‘Bottled water, white wine, red wine...something stronger...?’ He arched a questioning brow.
* * *
Was Lucien strutting his bare, bronzed stuff deliberately? Thia wondered. As a way of disconcerting her? If he was then he was succeeding. She had never felt so uncomfortably aware of a man in her life as she was now by all his warm naked flesh. Or so aroused!
The man should have a public health warning stamped on his chest. Something along the lines of ‘Danger to all women with a pulse’ ought to do it. And Thia was the only woman with a pulse presently in Lucien Steele’s disturbing vicinity! Her throat felt as if it had closed up completely, and her chest was so tight she could barely breathe, let alone speak.
She cleared her throat before even attempting it. ‘Red wine would be lovely, thank you,’ she finally managed to squeak, in a voice that sounded absolutely nothing like her own, only to draw a hissing breath into her starved lungs as Lucien turned away from her. The muscles shifted in his back beneath that smooth bronzed skin as he bent to take a bottle of wine from the rack beside the bar, and even more muscles flexed in his arms as he straightened to open it, the twin dips at the base of his spine clearly visible above the low-riding denims.
Twin dips Thia longed to stroke her tongue over, to taste, before working her way slowly up the length of that deliciously muscled back...!
‘Here you go.’ Lucien strolled unconcernedly across the room carrying two glasses of red wine—one obviously meant for Thia, the other for himself.
Evidence that he didn’t have any intention of putting any more clothes on in the immediate future? And why should he? This was his home, after all!
His close proximity now meant that Thia was instantly overwhelmed by that smell of lemons and the musky male scent she now associated only with this man, and her hand was trembling slightly as she reached out to take one of the wine glasses from him—only to spill some of the wine over the top of the glass as a jolt of electricity shot up her arm the moment her fingers came into contact with his.
‘Sorry,’ she mumbled self-consciously, passing the glass quickly into her other hand with the intention of licking the spilt wine dripping from her fingers.
‘Let me...’ Lucien reached out to catch her hand in his before it reached her parted lips, his gaze easily holding hers as he carried her fingers to his own mouth before lapping up the wine with a slow and deliberate rasp of his tongue. ‘Mmm, delicious.’ He licked his lips. ‘Perhaps I should consider always drinking wine this way...?’ His shaft certainly thought it was a good idea as it rose up hard and demanding inside his denims!
‘Lucien—’
‘Hmm?’ He continued to lick the slenderness of Cyn’s silky fingers even after all the wine had gone, enjoying the way her hand was trembling in his and watching the slow rise and fall of those plumped breasts and aroused nipples, his erection now almost painful in its intensity.
She snatched her hand away from his to glare up at him. ‘Are you doing this on purpose?’
‘Doing what...?’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Would you please go and put some clothes on?’
Lucien straightened slowly to look at her from between narrowed lids. ‘You seem a little...tense this evening, Cyn. Didn’t the Empire State live up to your expectations?’
‘The Empire State was every bit as wonderful as I always imagined it would be. And I’m not in the least tense!’ She moved away jerkily until she stood apart from him.
Far enough that she thought she had put a safe distance between them.
Lucien was so aroused right now he didn’t think the other side of the world would be far enough away to keep Cyn safe from him...
His meeting that afternoon had not gone well. No, that wasn’t accurate. It hadn’t been the meeting that was responsible for his feelings of impatience and dissatisfaction all afternoon. That had been due to the intrusive thoughts he’d had of Cyn all through that lengthy meeting—not just the silkiness of her skin, her responsive breasts, the delicious taste of her mouth, but also the fact that he liked her...her sense of humour, the way she answered him back, everything about her, damn it! It had caused Lucien to finally call a halt to negotiations and reschedule the meeting for another day next week.
Needless to say he had not been best pleased that he had allowed the distraction of those thoughts of Cyn to infringe on his business meeting, but one look at her tonight, dressed in those snug-fitting black denims and the delicate blue blouse, with the silky darkness of her hair loose about her shoulders, and his earlier feeling of irritated dissatisfaction had instantly been replaced by desire.
‘I thought that I had been invited up here for dinner,’ she snapped now. ‘Not to witness a male strip show!’
Lucien made no effort to hold back his grin of satisfaction at her obvious discomfort at seeing his bare chest. It seemed only fair when he had thought of her all afternoon. When his shaft was now an uncomfortable, painful throb against his denims. ‘I’m wearing more now than I would be on a beach,’ he reasoned.
‘Unless you haven’t noticed, we don’t happen to be on a beach.’ She frowned. ‘And I do not have any intention of providing your amusement for the evening.’
He eyed her mockingly. ‘Oh, I haven’t even begun to be amused yet, Cyn.’
‘And as far as I’m concerned you aren’t going to be, either!’ She placed her glass down noisily on the coffee table before straightening and turning, with the obvious intention of walking out on him.
Lucien reached out and grasped her arm as she would have stormed past him—only to ease up on the pressure of that grasp as he saw the way she winced. ‘Are your wrist and arm still hurting you?’ he rasped.
‘No. I—they’re fine.’ She gave a dismissive shake of her head, her eyes avoiding meeting his piercingly questioning gaze. ‘You just caught me unawares, that’s all.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
She sighed her impatience. ‘I don’t care whether or not— What are you doing?’ she demanded as Lucien released her arm before moving his hands to the front of her blouse, his fingers unfastening the tiny blue buttons. ‘Lucien? Stop it!’ She slapped ineffectually at his hands.
‘I don’t trust your version of “fine”, Cyn. I intend to see for myself,’ Lucien muttered grimly as he continued unfastening those buttons.
‘Stop it, I said!’ She pulled sharply away from him—a move immediately followed by a delicate ripping sound as Lucien refused to release his hold. The gauzy blouse ripped completely away from the last remaining buttons, leaving Cyn’s breasts completely bared to his heated gaze.
Full and beautifully sloping breasts...tipped by two perfect rosy-red nipples...those nipples were plumping and hardening in tempting arousal as Lucien continued to look down at them appreciatively.
