From New York With Love: Rumours on the Red Carpet / Rapunzel in New York / Sizzle in the City

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.

CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_81e26ab1-e2e8-51e6-aebe-bf142afb4756)

‘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.