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Her eyes snapped sideways and met the mocking silver gaze head on. ‘You’re my boss, I’m your secretary; having a fight isn’t an option,’ Kim said primly.
‘Is that so?’ Lucas contemplated the statement. ‘Then what happened after I kissed you?’ he asked interestedly. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but if that wasn’t a fight I wouldn’t want to be around you when you’re really mad.’
Kim eyed him severely. She didn’t want to be reminded of that kiss and she suspected Lucas knew it. ‘That was just setting the record straight.’ And look where it had got her!
‘The record being that you do not want a sexual relationship with any man ever again,’ Lucas murmured softly. ‘Which, of course, is too ridiculous to take seriously.’
‘Ridiculous or not, that’s the way I feel.’ It was a sharp snap, all her earlier resolutions of keeping calm and distant blown to the wind.
‘No, you don’t.’ There was triumph in the silver eyes. ‘You want me, Kim. Your lips and your body told me that this morning.’
‘Lucas.’ Kim glanced round nervously.
‘And sooner or later it will happen,’ he continued silkily. ‘You know that as well as I do; that’s why you’ve been as jumpy as a cat on a hot tin roof from the first day you came to work for me.’
‘It won’t happen, Lucas.’ Her eyes had darkened to ebony, and Lucas experienced a moment o
f intense irritation at the stubborn set of her soft mouth. ‘I have Melody; she’s the only person I need in my life.’
‘Melody is a wonderful little girl but she’s a child.’ He was careful not to let any of his anger sound in his voice. ‘I’m talking about a normal healthy relationship between two adults of the opposite sex.’
‘If such a thing exists.’ It was out before she even thought about it, and she felt her heart thud with horror at what she had unwittingly revealed. How was it he made her say things like that? she asked herself feverishly. Made her face things she didn’t even know she felt herself?
‘Oh, it exists, all right.’ His voice was very soft and his eyes piercing on her flushed unhappy face. ‘And when it’s good it’s the greatest thing on earth.’
‘I wouldn’t know anything about that.’ It was very stiff and cool. ‘And frankly I don’t want to.’
‘Yes, you do.’ He refused to accept her self-denial. ‘But you’re too scared, too locked up in yourself to admit it. You want me to hold you, Kim, to kiss you, taste you, ravish you. You want me to take you to heaven and back, to feel me inside you while you lie naked in my arms.’
‘Lucas, stop it. You can’t say things like that here.’ She was shattered, but more by the dangerous desire his soft deep voice was invoking than anything else.
‘Why? No one can hear us.’ He was so close she felt enveloped in his maleness, his scent, his warmth, and she was trembling. She couldn’t help it.
‘Please, Lucas…’
‘I want you, Kim. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted any woman in my life and after this morning I know you want me, too. I’m not going to let you deny us both.’
The arrival of further couples at the side of them, corresponding with the theatre lights fading and the start of the play, effectively finished any further conversation, but Kim continued to shake for the first ten minutes of Tennessee Williams’s Suddenly Last Summer, and in spite of the potent and riveting nature of the play she couldn’t seem to let her mind give it the attention it deserved.
The bar was crowded at the interval but Kim didn’t mind that; it cut out the chance of any more intimate conversation.
She concentrated on sipping her glass of white wine with what she hoped was seen as cool aplomb, but with Lucas’s arm draped casually round her waist and his lean hard frame pressed against her in the crush of human bodies, the composure was only on the surface.
In just a few hours Lucas had managed to completely alter the tenor of their association from formal employer and employee to… Her mind jerked to a halt. To what, exactly? she asked herself silently. Well, whatever it was, it didn’t matter. She had to get back to how it had been and as quickly as possible.
‘You’re frowning again.’ His lips brushed her ear as he whispered against the silk of her hair and she felt the impact right down to her toes.
‘Am I?’ She looked at him out of the corner of her eye but refused to be drawn further.
‘Uh-huh. And I dare bet you were thinking of me,’ he drawled affably.
‘Surprising though it may seem, I’m not always thinking of you.’
‘Something I intend to rectify from now on,’ said Lucas firmly.
Kim took another sip of her wine and prayed for the wit and courage to put him in his place. It didn’t come. She adjusted her position slightly as a large plump woman on the other side of her who was drenched in a particularly sickly-sweet perfume trod on her left foot, but the manoeuvre only had the effect of emphasising that Lucas wasn’t quite so cool and controlled as he looked as she came into contact with his thighs.
The betrayal of his body startled her into looking straight into his face and the silver eyes were waiting for her, his mouth twisted in a crooked grin that told her he was fully aware of her thoughts. ‘I told you I wanted you, Kim,’ he said gently against her ear again, his warm breath causing frissons of sensation in every part of her. ‘And a cold shower isn’t an option here.’
