Burning Up

Derek and the freaking studio.

He had his cell phone in his hands in no seconds flat.

SOPHIE TOOK A STEP BACK from the table as Lucas punched a button on his phone and waited impatiently for the call to connect. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. He was just so very, very good-looking. Not perfect—that would have made him plastic and artificial and repellent. Instead, he had laugh lines around his mouth and a thin white scar bisecting the end of one eyebrow. Certainly flawed and human. And even more devastatingly attractive because of it.

This is what people must mean when they talk about star quality, she decided helplessly. Charisma, magnetism, charm—whatever it was called, he had it by the bucketful.

And she was trapped in the tractor beam of that charisma like an ant in honey. She couldn’t seem to look away, despite having given herself a very firm talking to in the darkness of the pantry. Despite the fact, also, that he’d reacted as though she’d handed him a plateful of radioactive matter instead of a carefully prepared meal.

Help!

Any second now drool would spill out the side of her mouth and she’d start panting in earnest. Completely against her will. Completely against all her better instincts. All because he was tall.

And muscular.

And golden-skinned.

And he had those amazing eyes….

“You want to explain why the hell I’m on a diet?” he barked into the phone, his tone so sharp it made her jump.

Sophie blinked. Apparently when a person was famous, he didn’t need to bother with social niceties like hellos and goodbyes. If that didn’t quite break the spell his physical appeal had woven around her, his next words did.

“It’s not like I’ve ever had a weight problem before, Derek,” he said. “I don’t need to have someone telling me what to eat day and night. Especially when it’s tasteless crap I wouldn’t feed a dog.”

Tasteless crap? That he wouldn’t feed a dog? That quickly, Sophie snapped out of her lust-induced fog.

All her former disdain rushed back, and she felt her lip curl a little as she at last saw past his good looks to the person underneath. Just as she’d expected, Lucas Grant was spoiled. And arrogant. And rude.

She ignored the fact that she’d hated having his meal leave her kitchen so unadorned and flavorless—that was beside the point. She was standing right in front of him, and he’d insulted her without a thought.

“Why on earth would you agree to such a moronic contract clause?” Lucas growled, all his attention focused on his call.

She’d heard enough. Back stiff, she grabbed the plate from the table and turned toward the kitchen. If he didn’t like his lunch, she would make him something else, because that was what she was being paid to do. But it was going to be a long four weeks catering to the needs of such a jackass, that was for sure.

“Jesus, Derek, it’s not like I meant to kick the freakin’ thing. I was drunk. And if Candy or whatever her name was hadn’t left her bloody thong lying around for people to fall over, none of this would have happened.”

He was yelling now, his words echoing off the stone floors and high ceiling as Sophie entered the kitchen.

Shaking her head, she dumped the plate on the counter. On-set accident, her ass. He’d obviously injured himself in some stupid episode that involved women’s underwear and too much drink. Why was she even remotely surprised? It was exactly the kind of antic that kept his photograph in the gossip magazines on a regular basis. The man was an overgrown frat boy. End of story.

As for her initial reaction to his undeniable physical appeal—Well, she was only human. And now that she’d been reminded of the true man behind the facade, there would be no return of that unexpected, overwhelming rush of lust she’d felt. Uh-uh, no way, no how. It had been a one-off freak occurrence, never to happen again now that she was in full possession of the facts.

She turned from extracting a deli pack of ham from the fridge to find him standing in front of her—towering over her, really, since she was so short and he was so tall—and once again she was awash with the insane urge to press her body against his, to taste his lips, to run her fingers through his hair and wrap them around his—

“Listen, sorry about that,” he said, offering her a small, sheepish smile. “What can I say? My leg hurts like hell, I’m hungry enough to eat a small horse and I wasn’t expecting a plateful of grass and white sludge.”

His apology should have been insulting. He was still running down her cooking, after all. But the truth was that she wouldn’t have been too happy about being presented with such a tasteless plateful of bland, either. Plus, he was smiling at her, and it was amazing to discover how many different colors of amber and gold and topaz there were in the irises of his beautiful eyes….

It was happening again! Sophie gave herself a mental slap. She was not going to be mesmerized by him. Without a doubt, his appeal allowed him to get away with murder in life, and she was not going to pander to him when he already had most of the western world at his feet.

“I can make you something else,” she offered coolly. “An omelet? A club sandwich, or something more substantial, if that’s what you want?”

He shrugged in what she figured he thought was a boyishly rueful way. She narrowed her eyes and staunchly resisted the urge to be charmed.

“Apparently my contract states I have to maintain my current weight, and the studio is concerned I’ll pork up if I’m forced to sit around on my butt for too long,” he said. He eyed the chicken and cottage cheese, then slowly pulled the plate toward himself. “So, I guess this is me for the next four weeks.”

Resting his crutches against the island and cocking one hip against it, he grabbed a fork and began to eat. She watched, fascinated despite herself, until she caught sight of his tongue and something warm lurched in the pit of her stomach. Startled, she forced her gaze away.

She wasn’t interested in Lucas Grant’s tongue—or anyone else’s, for that matter.

Don’t you ever wonder what it would be like with someone else?

Brandon’s words haunted her yet again. Until Lucas had first appeared in her kitchen, she could have honestly answered no to that question. Which was disturbing for a whole bunch of reasons, really.

Determined to resist the lure of his charisma, Sophie returned the ham to the fridge and grabbed the sponge from the kitchen sink. Even though the counters were pristine, she wiped them down, anyway. Anything to distract herself from the disturbing tendency she felt to reach out and touch him, to find out if he really was as hard and hot as he looked.

“There. Done,” Lucas said.

She risked a glance in his direction and saw that his plate was bare. And that he’d switched his attention from food to her. There was a certain glint in his eye that hadn’t been there before, she noticed. And a certain quirk to one corner of his mouth, as though he was on the verge of smiling but wasn’t quite ready to share the joke. Then his gaze dropped below her face and she realized with a hot flush of awareness that he was checking her breasts out. And then—good Lord!—her thighs and ass.

By the time his gaze had returned to lock with hers, he was smiling fully. A big, enchanting, underwear-dissolving smile that had parts of her sitting up and begging for attention in complete violation of her vow to not buy into his whole roguish playboy routine.

“So. There’s a long afternoon ahead, Sophie,” he said.

Was it just her, or had his voice dropped an octave? She swore she could feel it rumbling along her nerve endings, smoky and seductive and meaningful.

Like a bunny in car headlights, she froze as he moved closer, using the counter to support himself instead of his crutches. By the time she clued in that she’d allowed him to effectively box her in, she was trapped and it was too late.

“So, are you a local? Can you think of anything fun we could do around here to while away the time?” Lucas asked.

Since when had the word fun sounded so…dirty? And enticing?

“I—I’m from S-Sydney,” she stuttered.

“Well, there’s probably plenty we can come up with if we really put our minds to it,” he said.

He was standing so close now that she could feel the heat radiating off his body. Her knees were weak, and her breasts felt heavy with need. Between her thighs, a traitorous heat was building.

Man, but he was sexy.

She inhaled deeply, sucking in his woody aftershave and something else that she suspected was simply hot man. For the first time in her life, she was overcome by the carnal desire to touch and be touched by another human being. It didn’t matter that he was most likely a jerk of the first order, that he probably didn’t have a sensitive or generous bone in his body. She wanted to have sex with him. She wanted to have him inside her, pounding into her, pushing her harder and faster. She wanted to get down and dirty and hot and sweaty with him.

There was so much need swelling inside her, so much crazy desire to be impulsive, to take the risk, to reach out and take what she wanted instead of being cautious and careful and considerate…. She felt dizzy. Out of control.

Scared.

He took another step forward, one hand finding the counter on either side of her so that she was bracketed within his arms. His eyelids had dropped to half mast as he focused on her mouth with intent.