Caught in His Gilded World

by Lucy Ellis

  But he did.

  He released her after just one kiss, leaving her stunned and slightly panting.

  ‘This is bad idea,’ he said thickly in broken English, his fingers still sifting the soft hair at the nape of her neck, still staring at her mouth.

  She didn’t want it to be a bad idea—she didn’t want him to stop. She ached.

  She really wanted another kiss.

  She was going to get one.

  Gigi slapped her hand to his chest and spread her fingers like a starfish, using his chest hair to tug him back in the direction she wanted him.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said, looking determinedly into his dark eyes.

  Something clean and wild pierced through the guard she had become used to seeing in his eyes, as if everything else had been a cover for what lived inside him and she’d just woken it up.

  Gigi had a flashback to that moment at the cabaret when he’d turned around and she’d imagined he was going to devour her.

  She just hadn’t thought it would be literally.

  A primitive thrill unlike any she’d ever known zinged along her spine to her brain, knocking out all the realities of their situation.

  The paparazzi...who he was...who she was...the cabaret. Gone.

  They were just a man and a woman.

  Their mouths met, his fused hungrily to hers once more, and the scrape of his tongue was tasting her, his hand holding the back of her head the better to angle the kiss. It wasn’t polite or gentle or coaxing. It was rough and raw and it sparked spot fires in her body Gigi couldn’t reach to put out.

  Instinctively she wrapped her arms around his neck and there was a clatter as the first aid gear went flying. She was caught by her legs and she clamped them around his lean, hard waist.

  He swung her off the vanity, big hands cupping her behind, and with their mouths still fused he strode from the bathroom, carrying her with him.

  It was all happening so fast, and Gigi wasn’t sure why but she just knew that if they slowed down one of them would stop this.

  He was stripping back her jacket and she was helping him, using her steely thigh muscles like grips to hold onto him. She wasn’t sure what she really wanted here, but he’d freed something in her that had been caught, that she’d never known until now, and she felt a little wild with it.

  Her breasts sang with sensation, squashed up against his chest as she fought free of her jacket.

  Under the press of her pelvis he was formidably aroused, and it was a shot to her ego that she could do this to him. Then she was free to hold him tightly to her and kiss him back, a little drunk on the taste, aware that this was so out of character nobody who knew her would recognise her.

  His knees hit the side of the bed and he lowered her on to her back in an economical move that spoke of much practice.

  But not practice with L’Oiseau Bleu showgirls, and that was what counted.

  He was pushing up her T-shirt, cupping her breasts, lifting himself so he could see her.

  Her common sense was shouting. This is not going to fix the cabaret. This is only going to get you into trouble.

  But still she ran her hands up his chest, revelling in his solidity and strength, looping her arms around his neck before he could get her bra off. She dragged his mouth down to hers again. His beard wasn’t scratchy at all. It was soft. It felt delicious.

  Her hands went shyly to his waistband, because she’d never been a girl to waste time, which was when she felt resistance shoot through his body. In the same instant his hand snapped like a handcuff around her wrist.

  ‘No, you don’t.’

  His gruff words hit her like a bucket of cold water.

  He released her wrist and what she saw in his dark eyes told her he was calling a halt to this—something she should have done minutes ago.

  That he could pull back now, when she was still hot and bothered and clinging to him, was just horribly embarrassing.

  As he moved away from her Gigi knew she should be getting upright fast, playing it just as cool and together as he appeared to be.

  Only she discovered she wasn’t that sophisticated. Or maybe it was that it had been so long since she’d been in a situation like this. With an actual. Live. Man.

  Holy moly—when had she ever been in a situation like this?

  He’s your boss.

  He was also a million years beyond her in sophistication, and she was proving that right now by squeezing her eyes shut, as if he might disappear, and she would wake in her own room, and all of this would be just one of those embarrassing being-caught-in-public-naked dreams.

  When she found the wherewithal to crank up an eyelid she discovered he was standing over her, running his hands through his hair where only moments before her fingers had been. He was looking rueful, and because of it younger—more his twenty-nine years than the über-successful man of the world she’d spent the last hour or so with.

  An hour, Gigi, and you’re flat on your back on his bed?

  She watched his biceps flex as he massaged the back of his neck and was distracted for a moment—until she realised what she was doing. She was acting like a sex-crazed rabbit!

  ‘This isn’t wise.’

  His voice was rough and deep, and crushingly certain as his gaze ran over her, rumpled and prone and probably unattractively flushed, still lying on the bed.

  No? Gigi struggled to prop herself up on her elbows.

  She wondered what he meant to do. Was she supposed to say something?

  ‘I need a shower.’

  Did he?

  She watched him go, uncertain of the etiquette. Still a little dazed and confused. What had she done wrong?

  Not what—who, you eejit. You’re a Bluebird, and he’s the boss, and this is not what you came for.

  She looked down at her breasts, which had been so happy beneath his hands, and at her nipples, which were still standing up like two little soldiers on parade.

  Not today, ladies.

  She watched the door close and she was left on her own in the middle of the glamorous bed. Her squeak firmly in place.

  * * *

  Khaled stepped out of the shower, his body under control after the effects of chill-level water, aware that this brief taste of Gigi had made her even more dangerous.

  He knew now how she felt—soft, pliant, wild. How she moved her mouth—sensuously. How she used her tongue, and the little sounds she made that were enough to tip him over the edge.

  She was the sweetest, wildest thing.

  He blew out a deep breath. Only not for him.

  He’d caught himself a Bluebird—but with photographs of them together on the internet there was no way he could do what would clearly come far too naturally for both of them, it appeared.

  It would not be conducive to a quick sale of the cabaret.

  For now, he had to get her out of here.

  He stepped into the bedroom and found—nothing.

  The only sign of what had occurred was the rumpled coverlet and the scent of her—something like cinnamon and sugar baked hot. It made his mouth water.

  ‘Gigi?’

  Silence.

  He’d dropped her backpack on the seat at the end of the bed and it was gone too.

  Khaled stood with his hands resting lightly on his lean towel-wrapped hips and wondered at the disappointment dropping through him. He’d misjudged her. How in hell had he misjudged her? He’d been so wide of the mark he needed either a psychologist, to find out where his native intelligence had gone, or a sex therapist to work out at exactly what point what was between his legs had superseded his brain.

  Thumping something suddenly appealed.

  All that sweet, eccentric confusion she trailed—like breadcrumbs to t
he doorstep of that cabaret of hers. A con. How had he missed it?

  He should have been analysing that the moment her thighs had locked decisively around his hips and her breasts, like the plump little weapons of male destruction they were, had hit his chest—not being concerned about her well-being and whether he was pushing this too quickly, and exactly how fast was too fast to peel her jeans off.

  Yanking on his own pair of jeans and fighting into a fresh shirt, he wondered at his own credulity.

  He’d been on the receiving end of women looking for a pay-off too many times to be this careless.

  The problem was it had been her obvious distress and confusion when the paps had descended which had muddied his reactions.

  She didn’t act like a woman on the make—she came across instead as a lively, extroverted girl who incidentally had a cabaret to promote, and in the next breath as a vulnerable young woman with a past that sounded at best colourful and at worst abusive, given he’d seen her feet.

  It had been instinct that had had him tugging off his T-shirt and showing her his own scars, wanting to take the sting out of her embarrassment about her own. He hadn’t counted on how good her hands had felt on his body, and for a few minutes there she’d been utterly happy to accommodate him on the bathroom vanity. Seemingly gratis. No emotional fallout or extended lines of communication required.

  It was a scenario that didn’t happen in his life any more. Not since he’d made his first million. There was always a catch.

  What he had discovered now wasn’t unfamiliar, but somehow he’d let down his guard with her, and oddly her departure felt like a kick to the guts.

  He snorted.

  Focus, man.

  She hadn’t got what she wanted and she was gone—simple. Now he needed to make an overdue call to his personal legal advisor and find out what he could do about those photos.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  KHALED HAD HIS phone out as he wandered barefoot into the main living room, with its explosion of taffetas and velvets, but he never made that call.

  Sitting on the sofa, with her impossibly long legs curled under her, her coppery head bent as she worked, was Gigi.

  With a laptop.

  He moved up silently behind her. A part of him was asking what the hell he was doing. What had he expected? To find her uploading photos of his hotel room? Possibly. Privacy was something nobody could take for granted any more.

  He stopped behind the sofa. The screen in front of her was full of images of L’Oiseau Bleu.

  ‘Gigi?’

  She almost jumped off the sofa. ‘Oh, Mary and Joseph, you scared me.’

  After an initial moment of eye contact she guiltily returned her attention to the screen almost immediately.

  His instincts prowled. He glanced at the screen—more in an attempt to work her out than out of any real interest in what she was doing. ‘What is this?’ he asked, more abruptly than he’d meant to.

  ‘I’m just gathering some things I want to show you about the cabaret’s history...its importance to Paris. I thought seeing as I’m up here...’ Her voice ran away and she clicked on another image—one of the cabaret in its heyday.

  Khaled was more interested in the laptop. Had she run with that in her backpack?

  Come to think of it, the thing hadn’t been light when he’d been carrying it around.

  ‘Maybe this is a bad idea,’ she said, still intent on avoiding eye contact. ‘You probably don’t have time to take a look. I should probably get out of your hair.’

  She was putting down the lid on the laptop and unfolding her long legs.

  He moved fast and dropped down onto the sofa beside her, reached for it.

  ‘Show me what you’ve got.’

  He’d jumped her in the bathroom—he could give her five minutes.

  What she had was clusters of images, reviews, articles, all informatively cascading one after the other.

  ‘This is our current show—we’ve been performing it for the last three years.’

  The screen was filled with colour and movement and cheesy eighties dance music.

  He was about to tell her she could skip this part when he zeroed in on Gigi, descending the stairs with a line of other showgirls.

  She looked like a glittering peacock, dragging a shimmering tail. Her arms were gracefully outstretched, an elaborate neck-piece of glittering rhinestones falling from her throat to cover her chest, but doing nothing to hide the fact that all the girls who weren’t wearing rhinestone bras were topless.

  The warmth of Gigi’s very real body beside him and the memory of the very real breasts he’d had his hands on was making a mockery of his decision to keep his hands off her.

  One act succeeded the next—primarily tableaux vivants that involved the girls wearing as little as possible. In between there was a chanteuse, a performing dog, a barbershop quartet and some magic tricks. It was certainly different.

  He folded his arms, switched off the male part of his brain that kept fixating on her breasts, and allowed himself to appreciate the very real charm of it.

  Eventually she hit ‘stop’ and looked at him expectantly.

  Until now he hadn’t been convinced that it was anything more than a glorified strip joint. Frankly, he wasn’t sure what it was. On the one hand there was all the charm and femininity of the over-the-top dance numbers. Even the male dancers looked as if they’d been neutered. On the other hand there were the boobs and the bottoms that gave it its risqué reputation. But that was very French. Gigi had been telling him the truth, and now he understood a little of why Paris was going slightly bonkers over the idea of him laying a hand on their precious L’Oiseau Bleu.

  She was good. He hadn’t expected her to be this good.

  ‘What do you think?’

  He thought that he was hard and aching, and it had nothing to do with what he’d just seen on this screen and everything to do with the sweet sexiness of the girl curled up beside him, who at every turn had proved herself to be not quite what he’d thought she was.

  He looked into her hopeful, obviously secretly pleased expression and began to wonder exactly what was going on in that eccentric little head of hers.

  * * *

  Gigi congratulated herself on the professional way she was conducting herself. She’d kept her hands to herself and she was almost the whole way through her presentation. Really, nobody could find fault.

  If you put aside the bodyguard incident in the lobby. The incident with the crowd on the Champs-Élysées. The incident with the paparazzi. The incident in the lobby with her shoes and—she closed her eyes briefly—the incident on the bathroom vanity, ending with her flat on her back in the bedroom, about which the less she thought the better.

  No, all in all, putting those things aside, she’d handled this quite well.

  Somehow she’d come through it all and had him where she’d wanted him hours ago, before all this began.

  On a sofa, glued to her presentation.

  It was time to fire some questions at him.

  But first of all she made herself look him in the eye—the first time she’d done so since he’d sat down beside her.

  After all, she wasn’t ashamed of her perfectly healthy sex drive. And she guessed she would have remembered soon after he did that this was a professional relationship and called a halt.

  Only lifting her gaze to those velvet-lashed dark eyes she was instantly out of her depth again, and she knew to her embarrassment that whatever hadn’t happened between them was all down to him.

  She’d been the one kicking things and climbing over the poor man and forcing him to stroke her breasts.

  ‘So what do you think?’ she asked in a strangled voice.

  ‘Impressive.’

  Impressive? Rea
lly? She caught herself in time. He doesn’t mean your breasts, Gigi!

  Although, actually, stroking her breasts had been down to him...

  Stop thinking about your breasts!

  She cleared her throat. ‘I was wondering if you’d given any thought to what road you might go down,’ she ventured. ‘We’d like to stay family-friendly.’

  ‘Family-friendly?’

  Gigi’s optimism dwindled a little. Why did he have to say it as if it was a concept he wasn’t entirely familiar with?

  ‘We’re sexy, but you can bring your mum. Family-friendly,’ she explained. ‘I mean obviously we’d have to keep our “Sixteen and Over” door rule...’

  ‘Obviously.’

  She resisted looking up at his dry tone, pretending instead to be interested in sorting through a few images of the current show as she wondered exactly how far she could push this without blurting out, We don’t want to become a nasty men’s club.

  ‘It’s a concern, given your other...um...holdings.’

  ‘I own gambling venues, some nightclubs, hotels...’

  She glanced up.

  ‘No strip joints, Gigi,’ he said with a faint smile.

  She moistened her lips. ‘It’s just that when the girls took off their pasties and started writhing unimaginatively round poles burlesque died.’

  Khaled tried to imagine Gigi arching against a pole in nothing much. Curiously, it wasn’t a salacious image. Instead it was one that made him feel like the morals police. In his mind he barricaded the stage and put up ‘Nothing To See Here’ signs, wrapped her in a robe and hustled her towards the exit.

  He cleared his throat. ‘Pasties?’

  ‘Nipple shields—tassels sometimes.’

  He frowned.

  She gave a sigh, as if he were being deliberately obtuse, and spelt it out. ‘Tit tape.’

  ‘Does this mean you’re not actually topless?’

  He was speaking generally, but he suddenly wanted to know specifics. Specifically Gigi, and exactly how much of her was on show.

  He’d seen a screen full of topless showgirls swathed in ropes of rhinestones falling from elaborate neck-pieces, nipples peeking through. It wasn’t exactly salacious—you could see just as much flesh on most beaches in Europe—but he was a man...he knew how other men would be looking at it.