But he had not been prepared. He had suspected she was beautiful beneath her gloomy clothes, of course—but he’d had no idea how correct he was.
For the first time since he’d met her, she was not wearing an undertaker’s suit in black or gray. Instead, she had chosen to wear a dress so red, so bright, that it was all he could do not to gawk at the way it flowed over the mesmerizing legs she’d made even longer, even more wicked, in high platform sandals. The dress clung to her breasts as he would like his hands to do, spanned her waist with a lover’s attention to detail and then flared out from her body to show only saucy hints of the magnificent legs beneath. She looked like a column of fire, and he wanted to burn them both beyond recognition.
But because she was Grace, and might possibly be the death of him, she had left her hair up. In a slightly more complicated knot, to be sure, with a few tendrils of golden blond waves left hanging to tease and entice, but it was ultimately no less controlled than her usual style. He felt certain it was a deliberate act of defiance on her part.
One step at a time, Lucas thought. He was that much closer to getting her naked and beneath him, and that, really, was what mattered. It was fast becoming an obsession.
He had presented her to the pop princess who had, as he’d anticipated, eagerly agreed to perform at the gala—an agreement that Grace had immediately set out to confirm with the girl’s hovering management team while Lucas suffered through a series of indecent propositions that should have appealed to him more than they did. He had smiled obediently for the cameras, and then the princess and her entourage had moved on, leaving Grace behind to email back and forth with her team members about ways to update the design concept for the party to best showcase the new talent. And leaving Lucas with nothing to do but imagine removing that silky smooth red dress from her mouthwatering curves, tasting every inch of her heated skin as he went.
“All right,” she said finally, looking up at him, triumph bright in her eyes. “That was another fantastic idea. Thank you.” She slid her PDA into the clutch bag she held. “I’ll find my own way home, and see you in the office—”
“Home?” He tamped down on the unexpected surge of temper, but still found himself glaring at her. “You cannot be serious.”
“Of course I’m serious,” she said, with that calm gaze of hers that he suddenly found enraging, not peaceful or relaxing at all. “I understand that you are used to all manner of late evenings and early mornings, and more power to you. I, however, require far more sleep in order to function.”
“This may very well be the party of the year,” Lucas said mildly, waving his hand at the parade of celebrities, the overwrought chandeliers up above, the walls draped in deep magenta and studded with crystals. “You miss a single moment of it at your peril.”
“It’s a bit early in the year to be making such pronouncements, don’t you think?” She shrugged. “Besides, I believe the intricacies of the London party circuit fall more within your purview than mine.”
“I want you to stay with me,” he said, baldly. He saw her stiffen, saw her eyes widen. He smiled. “After all, this is the perfect place to drum up excitement for the gala, is it not? Who knows what other luminaries we can rope into attending?”
Her brown eyes were wary—and furious, he noted with growing interest. Why should she be furious? But he suspected he knew. He felt it, too, the tightening noose around them. The pull of it.
The difference was, he was not fighting it. Much.
“Have I misunderstood something?” she asked in the tone of one who was quite certain she had misunderstood nothing. “I was under the impression that the collection of celebrities was your job—a job you are quite good at, actually.” She waved her hand at the crowd around them. “And, of course, these are your sort of people, anyway.”
“Famous?” he asked idly. “Shockingly attractive? Filthy rich and well connected?”
“Bored,” she retorted with that sharp smile and a matching glint in her eyes. “Desperate. As anyone would be, were their self-worth predicated on how many mentions they received in a glossy magazine.”
He eased back against the settee and watched the flush of heat that stole across her face. Passion, he thought with deep satisfaction. And she was not happy about it.
But he was.
“As opposed to the deep social and philosophical relevance of party planning for a department store?” Lucas asked mildly, baiting her. “I can certainly see where your exalted sense of worth comes from.”
She froze, her eyes shooting sparks at him, temper storming across her normally impassive face. It fascinated him.
“I have a job,” she said from between her teeth. “One that I am very, very good at. My self-worth derives from my achievements. Not my father’s surname.”
That might have landed a blow on a man less used to hearing such things and in far more offensive terms. But Lucas only relaxed against the settee, stretching his arm along the back and smiling at her.
“You just finished telling me that I’m good at the same job,” he said, making his tone deliberately insulting, wanting to see the fire in her blaze higher. Hotter. “How difficult can it be?”
“Is anything difficult for you?” she asked, her voice scathing, her hands curling into fists in her lap. “Or do you just float through life making snide commentary and endless innuendos, forever the darling of the paparazzi and very little else? How proud you must be. How deep, indeed, your still waters run.”
He was uncomfortably hard, and delighted with her temper, even though she directed it at him. He, after all, could take it. Temper did not upset him; it usually only intrigued him, since he so rarely lost his own. Still, he was a man, and her words made him long to teach her all manner of lessons. Soon, he thought, watching her proprietarily. Very soon.
“Are we discussing masks, Grace?” he asked quietly, angling close enough to breathe in her scent. “Because I’ve been waiting to talk about yours since the moment we met. What are you so afraid of?”
“Becoming you, of course,” she threw at him immediately, with all of her customary ice and that fire that he instinctively knew was blazing bright underneath. “Becoming anything like you. A zombie with a million-dollar smile.”
“That would hurt my feelings—” he began, fighting a smile.
“If you had any,” she finished for him, and rolled her eyes. “I know full well that you don’t.”
“If I believed you,” he corrected her, his voice quiet but firm. He waited until her gaze found his. “But we both know that you’ll say whatever it takes to maintain this fiction of yours. That you do not want me. That you cannot feel this thing between us, this pull. What would happen if you told the truth, Grace? What then?”
The party was loud around them, a swirling cloak of laughter and music and the whirl of interchangeable faces, but Lucas hardly noticed any of it. There was only this forgotten settee in a darkened corner of the expansive room. There was only this woman. There was only this need.
“Oh,” she breathed, not looking away, her eyes narrowing. “I didn’t understand. This is still about your ego, isn’t it? I won’t fall at your feet and beg for your attention, so there must be a grand conspiracy. There must be a detailed explanation. Masks and fictions and reasons.”
“Not at all,” he said, unable to keep the laughter from his voice, though it only seemed to stoke the fire within him. “Only the truth.”
“Here’s the truth, then,” she said, her voice dangerous, honey and fire. She shifted closer, her need to slap at him and show him her power clearly overcoming any common sense. He needed only to lean forward and he could taste her.
“I am all ears,” he murmured, the laughter gone, every part of him focused on that lush, full mouth so close to his.
Her smile was like a razor, her voice like a whip. “If I were to make a list of all the things that I hate in a man, every single characteristic you possess would be on that list.”
“I h
ave no doubt,” he said, raising his gaze to catch hers. Holding them both captive for a long, hot breath. “But that doesn’t change the fact you want me inside of you. Right now. All night. Until you can’t stand the pleasure any longer.”
He saw her silent gasp as her breath fled her, saw the color flood her face, but most of all he saw the heat in her deep brown eyes. The carnal wonder. The need.
His, he thought. She was his.
“Your conceit is rivaled only by how deeply you are mistaken,” she managed to say, but her voice was no more than a thread of sound, and her eyes were too wide.
“The facts remain the same,” he taunted her softly.
“I don’t want you,” she said, enunciating every word. But he could see how it cost her, how she fought for control. “Is that clear enough for you? Is there any room for error? You bore me.”
But she didn’t move away. If anything, she angled her body closer.
He looked at her for a long, shimmering moment. The music pounded. The crowd surged. London sparkled and preened far below them, even as raindrops fell against the high glass enclosure above.
But all Lucas could see was Grace. Maddening, courageous, sharp-mouthed Grace. His.
Then, never breaking eye contact, he reached over and gently pressed his fingers against the delicate hollow of her neck. Where her skin was soft like satin and hot to the touch.
Where her pulse thumped out hard and then went wild beneath his hand.
“Liar,” he whispered. Then he closed the distance between them and took her mouth with his.
CHAPTER SIX
MOST first kisses were gentle, sweet. Lucas was neither.
He simply took her mouth with no hesitation—as if it was his, as if she was his, as if that devastating possession was his right.
It was like a bomb detonated inside of her, exploding through her limbs, white-hot fire and spiraling need combusting again and again and again, leaving her weak. Wanting. Her breasts ached. Her nipples hardened. Her core melted. And still he kissed her, taking her mouth with an easy command that made her tremble against him.
He kissed with a carnal demand, a sheer, arrogant certainty, that shook Grace almost as much as the feel of his mouth on hers.
Hot. Commanding. As if her entire life had led inexorably to this moment, to the incomparable feel of his lips against hers, sending desire swimming through her veins like alcohol and rendering her incapable of doing anything more than kissing him back.
As if she had never done anything else. As if she would die if she did not.
She raised a hand, and then forgot why as it found the rock-hard planes of his chest, the hint of stubble on his lean jaw, each new sensation igniting a flood of desire, each stronger and more thrilling than the last.
She … forgot. Where they were. Why she was angry with him. Why she should not allow him to angle his mouth over hers with such skill and talent, nor rake a hand into her hair to anchor her head in place as he tasted her again and again and again. Everything that was not Lucas was like smoke, drifting away, signifying nothing. As if only he existed.
Without lifting his mouth from hers, without giving her even a moment to breathe, to collect herself, Lucas shifted on the small settee, his powerful arms sweeping Grace up and over him, settling her sideways across his lap. He murmured something she could not understand, could hardly hear over the pounding of her heart and the wild rush in her ears, and then he claimed her mouth once more.
It was too much. He was everywhere. Hard beneath her thighs, hard against her body, and that talented, wicked mouth of his that took and took, until she could not think at all. She could only feel the heat. The fire. The slick fit and exquisite taste of him, expensive liquor mixed with that part that was purely him. Pure Lucas. Sinful and delicious and capable of making her head spin around and around while the very core of her pulsed with need.
One of his hands remained laced in her hair, and on some dim level she was aware that he was destroying her careful twist. The pins scattered at his impatient touch and the heavy, wild curtain of her blond waves cascaded down around them, shielding them, cocooning them. She could not find it in her to care. His other hand stroked a lazy path from her cheek to her neck, down the stretch of her bare arm to settle at her hip, his big hand holding her fast on one side with his arousal stark and unmistakable on the other.
Grace’s hands went to his strong, sculpted shoulders and were lost, unable to keep from testing the stark physical power he held leashed there—the fine, chiseled lines of his lean and muscular form. Once again, her hand crept to his cheek as if she could hold him, understand him, make sense of him that way. As if she could keep him there, kissing her as if he was starved for her, kissing him back as if she had never been kissed before, as if he had switched a light on inside of her and she could only glow. And glow.
She had never felt this fine desperation, this coiling, insistent need. This fire. She was lost in him. Undone by him.
And still he made love to her mouth as if he could do so forever, as if he had all the time in the world, as if nothing existed but the two of them.
At first, the flash of light made no sense to her, though she pulled back and blinked, dazed, her breath coming in pants and her eyes too glazed to see. But then it came again, and again, and she realized with dawning alarm that it was not lightning. It was no storm. It was a camera. A flashbulb.
“Ignore them,” Lucas muttered, his hands still urgent on her.
Reality came crashing back, slamming into Grace with the force of a punch to her gut. Ice and horror washed through her, and for a long moment she was frozen, incapable of movement, like a stone as she stared down at Lucas.
At that wicked mouth of his, that some treacherous part of her still longed for. At his beautiful, fallen-angel face, that she now knew the feel of beneath her hands. At his bold, unapologetic green gaze, that tore into her like knives, leaving her jagged and despairing.
She could not speak. Words flashed across her mind, harsh and accusing, desperate and pleading, and none of them came close to addressing how she felt. What it meant to be the latest in his endless parade of interchangeable females. Who she had just discovered she was, despite everything, despite all her years of sacrifice and hard work, ambition and denial.
All it took, apparently, was a red dress and the world’s most shameless playboy, and she transformed into her own worst nightmare.
She lurched to her feet, putting air and space between their too-heated bodies, letting her hair swirl around her—hoping it covered her face and concealed her identity from the cameras. She wished desperately she did not have to live through the next awkward, terrible moments, that instead she could simply disappear in a puff of smoke and avoid the consequences of her thoughtless actions altogether. But when had she ever gotten what she’d wished for?
Lucas reached out and snagged her small wrist in his big, elegant hand before she could turn away, forcing her to look down at him, sprawled there on the brushed suede settee like some kind of dissolute god. She wanted to scream, to curse. To throw things at him. To ruin that handsome face, as if that could change how easily she’d fallen for him, how quickly she’d melted all over him.
She bit back what felt like a sob—but could not be. She would not allow it. Not here. Not now. Not where too many people, too many cameras—and Lucas—could see.
“Don’t touch me,” she managed to grit out, past the lump in her throat and the tears that threatened to further disarm and expose her. “Haven’t you done enough for one night?”
“Grace,” he began, his voice low, but she could not listen to him. He was all lies and seduction, and she had to go before she lost herself completely. She had to think. How could she repair the damage? It was as if a bomb really had gone off, and she was the wreckage, all splintered and shredded and strewn haphazardly about. There was nothing left of the Grace she had been before he’d kissed her like that.
And she would die before she let h
im see it.
She jerked her wrist from his grasp, all too aware, from the measuring gleam in his green eyes, that he allowed it. And then she spun around on her heel, ignoring his muttered curse, and threw herself into the crowd. She shoved her way past the avid gazes of the looming cameramen and bolted for the elevator that would whisk her away from this mess.
If only she could run from herself as easily.
She heard her mother’s voice echo in her head, weathered from too many cigarettes and too many bad choices. “Someday you’ll ruin yourself on some no-account man just like the rest of us. You’ll see. Then maybe you won’t be so high and mighty.”
Grace felt a rolling swell of a multitude of things—none of them high and mighty. Maybe no one could escape her destiny. Maybe she’d been a fool to try so hard, for so long.
It was not until she’d made it down into the lobby of the exclusive luxury hotel that she realized she’d left her bag behind on the top level—behind the tight wall of high-level security that only Lucas’s famous face had managed to breach. She sighed, a noise that was dangerously close to a sob.
Her keys. Her wallet. Her PDA. How could she leave without them? Where could she go?
She came to a stop in the middle of the marble floor, her legs feeling unsteady beneath her, her breath still too quick and her heart still so loud she was afraid it echoed in the hushed space.
“Grace.”
Of course he had followed her. He was the reigning champion of this particular game, and she had just forfeited. All over him and on film.
It was not possible to hate herself more than she did at that moment, but Grace tried. Oh, how she tried.
She did not turn around, but still, she knew when he drew close. Her body reacted as if his proximity was a caress. She felt an inevitable, breathless kind of heat slide from the nape of her neck to her breasts, then down between her legs where it coiled tight and bloomed into a fire. She found she was biting her lower lip and forced herself to stop. Just as she forced herself to raise her head and meet his penetrating yet oddly shuttered gaze when he stepped around to her front to face her.
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