Rumors on the Red Carpet

by Carole Mortimer

  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 he
r...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.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘I CAN’T BELIEVE you just did that!’ Thia was the first to recover enough to speak, staring accusingly at Lucien even as her shaking hands scrabbled desperately to pull the two sides of her blouse together over her bared breasts, feeling mortified by her nakedness in front of a man she already found far too overpoweringly attractive for comfort.

  Her knees had once again turned to the consistency of jelly at the heat she saw in those silver eyes...!

  ‘I believe, if you think about it, you’ll find that we just did that,’ Lucien drawled hardly. ‘You pulled away. I didn’t let go.’ He shrugged.

  Thia bristled indignantly, clutching on to anger as a means of hiding her embarrassment—and arousal—at the continued heat in Lucien’s gaze. ‘You shouldn’t have been unbuttoning my blouse in the first place!’

  ‘I wanted to see your bruises. I still want to see them,’ he added determinedly.

  ‘You saw a lot more than my bruises!’ she snapped. ‘And I believe we’ve already had one discussion about my feelings concerning what you do or don’t want. In this instance what you wanted resulted in the ruination of a blouse I was rather fond of and saved for weeks to buy.’

  ‘I’ll replace it for you tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh, won’t that be just wonderful?’ She huffed her exasperation. ‘I can hear your telephone conversation with the woman in the shop now—Send a blue blouse round to Miss Hammond’s suite at Steele Heights Hotel. I ripped the last one off her!’ She attempted to mimic his deep tones. ‘Are you laughing at me, Lucien?’ Thia eyed him suspiciously and she thought—was sure!—she saw his lips twitch.

  He chuckled softly. ‘Admiring the way you sounded so much like me.’

  ‘Well, I certainly can’t stay and have dinner with you now.’

  ‘Why not?’ All amusement fled and his expression darkened.

  ‘Hello?’ She gave him a pitying look. ‘Ripped blouse and no bra?’

  ‘I noticed that.’ Lucien nodded, silver eyes once again gleaming with laughter even if his expression remained hard and unyielding. ‘We’ve met three times now, and on none of those occasions have you been wearing a bra,’ he added curiously.

  Thia’s cheeks blushed a fiery red as she thought of the revealing gown she had been wearing last night—no way could she have been wearing a bra beneath that. And the intimacy of Lucien’s caresses in his office earlier today had shown him that she hadn’t been wearing a bra under her pink crop top, either. As for ripping her blouse just now and baring her breasts...!

  ‘I—the uniform I have to wear when I’m working at the restaurant is of some heavy material that makes me really hot, so I usually go without one and it’s just become a habit,’ she explained defensively.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining.’

  ‘Why am I not surprised?’ If she were honest, Thia’s initial shock and anger were already fading and she now felt a little like laughing herself—slightly hysterically—at this farcical situation. Hearing her blouse rip, seeing the initial shock on Lucien’s face, had been like something out of a sitcom. Except Thia didn’t intend letting him off the hook quite that easily...

  Oh, she had no doubt that ripping her blouse had been an accident, and that she was as much to blame for it as Lucien was. But if he hadn’t been behaving quite so badly by insisting on having his own way—again!—he would never have been in a position to rip her blouse in the first place. Or to bare her breasts. And that really had been embarrassing rather than funny.

  Besides, she really did find Lucien far too disturbing when he was only wearing a pair of faded denims and showing lots of bare, muscled flesh. Her ripped blouse was the perfect excuse for her to cry off having dinner with him this evening.

  ‘We haven’t talked about the Jonathan Miller situation yet.’

  Lucien had just—deliberately?—said the one thing guaranteed to ensure Thia stayed exactly where she was!

  * * *

  Lucien had found himself scowling at the idea of Thia working in a public restaurant night after night, wearing no bra, with those delicious breasts jiggling beneath her uniform for all her male customers to see and ogle.

  Just as it now displeased him that Cyn was so obviously rethinking her decision about not having dinner with him only because he had mentioned the Jonathan Miller situation.

  The other man had physically hurt her, was responsible for her having had nowhere to sleep last night other than that disreputable hotel, and yet Miller hadn’t given a damn what had happened to her when he’d thrown her belongings haphazardly into a suitcase this morning and handed them over to Lucien.

  Worst of all, Lucien now knew, from his conversation with Miller, that the other man had been using Cyn for his own purposes. He had believed—wrongly, as it happened—that her presence in his apartment in New York would give the impression that his affair with Simone Carew, was over. Something Cyn was still totally unaware of...

  ‘Well?’ he rasped harshly.

  She gave a pained frown. ‘Perhaps you have a T-shirt I could wear? And maybe you could find o
ne for yourself while you’re at it?’ she added hopefully.

  How did this woman manage to deflate his temper, to make him want to smile, when just seconds ago he had been in a less than agreeable mood at how distracted he had been all afternoon? Because of this woman...

  But smile he did as he crossed his arms in front of his chest. ‘It really bothers you, doesn’t it?’

  ‘All that naked manly chest stuff? Yes, it does.’ She nodded. ‘And it isn’t polite, either.’

  ‘That was a rebuke worthy of my mother!’ Lucien was no longer just smiling. He was chuckling softly.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And far be it from me to disobey any woman who can scold like my mother!’

  ‘You’re so funny.’ She eyed him irritably.

  He gave an unconcerned shrug. ‘I’ll get you one of my T-shirts.’ No doubt Cyn would look sexy as hell in one of his over-large tops!

  Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘You’re being very obliging all of a sudden.’

  Lucien quirked a dark brow. ‘As opposed to...?’

  ‘As opposed to your usual bossy and domineering self—’ She broke off to eye Lucien warily as he dropped his arms back to his sides before stepping closer to her.

  ‘You know, Cyn,’ he murmured softly, ‘it really isn’t a good idea to insult your dinner host.’

  ‘Would that be the same dinner host who almost ripped my blouse off me a few minutes ago?’

  The very same dinner host who would enjoy nothing more than ripping the rest of that blouse from her body! The realisation made Lucien scowl again.

  This woman—too young for him in years and experience, and far too outspoken for her own good—made him forget all his own rules about the women in his life—namely, only older, experienced women, who knew exactly what they were getting—or rather what they were not going to get from him, such as marriage and for ever—when they entered into a relationship with him.