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‘Lucas!’ For a moment she stared blankly at the tall, lean figure in front of her dressed casually in a charcoal shirt and black jeans, but as the silver eyes narrowed slightly and showed their appreciation of her clothes—or lack of them—reality surged in in an overwhelmingly hot flood that started at her toes and worked upwards.
Kim resisted the impulse to cross her arms over her breasts and said instead, her voice as cool as she could make it, considering she was giving a first-rate impression of a furnace at full tilt, ‘What’s the matter? Is anything wrong?’
‘Plenty,’ he drawled lazily, ‘the first thing being that I’m kicking myself for not calling round before, this summer.’
She tried for a smile, which was a mistake because it turned into more of a nervous twitch, and then, as she heard Melody’s excited voice just behind her calling Lucas’s name, Kim groaned inwardly. If she knew anything about her hospitable little daughter, Lucas was going to be invited to come and see Melody’s new paddling pool, which of course was fine, great—or would have been if her mother wasn’t half-naked!
‘Lucas!’ Melody skidded along the hall on small bare wet feet and with an abandonment Kim envied, and as Lucas bent down and held out his arms Melody jumped right into them. ‘I kept asking Mummy when you’d come and she said she didn’t know,’ Melody told him as she put small hands on his shoulders and looked into the dark rugged face. ‘She said you were busy.’
‘Not too busy to call and see you,’ Lucas said easily, straightening with Melody still perched in his arms and standing to look at Kim. Two pairs of eyes, one glittering metallic silver and the other deep liquid brown, surveyed her unblinkingly, and Kim sighed her acquiescence to the unspoken request.
‘You’d better come in,’ she said a touch ungraciously to Lucas. She couldn’t fight them both.
‘Thank you,’ he said with mocking gratefulness, and the colour which had just begun to die down returned with new ferocity.
Irritating, impossible man! All the warmer feelings she’d indulged in earlier went right out of the window.
‘Coffee?’ She led the way down the hall, painfully aware of the transparency of the sarong and the revealing nature of the bikini. The purchase of the bikini had been in the nature of a statement one Saturday a few weeks before.
Lucas had taken her out to lunch the previous day, and as they’d been leaving the restaurant there had been a low and discreet call from a table across the room, and a woman had made her way to their side. An exquisitely dressed and equally exquisitely beautiful woman.
Lucas had introduced them, and Kim had been very conscious of a pair of green feline eyes looking her over from head to toe. Perfectly painted, glossy lips had managed a half-smile before the woman had gone on to ask if Lucas was coming to some party or other that weekend. ‘It will be such fun, darling,’ the carefully modulated voice had urged seductively. ‘Clarice’s little get-togethers always are. Remember the last time when we finished up in the pool and I lost my bikini top? A designer one, too, darling,’ she added in an aside to Kim. ‘Although Lucas found it for me.’
She just bet Lucas had. Kim’s face must have spoken volumes because she remembered Lucas’s mockingly cynical smile as he had made their goodbyes, and led her out of the restaurant with a light hand at her elbow.
‘An old friend?’ She’d resisted asking until they were nearly back at the office.
Lucas had shrugged easily. ‘In a manner of speaking.’
‘The party sounded as though it was a bit wild,’ Kim had said brightly, hating him.
‘Not really.’ Amused eyes had rested on her flushed face for a moment. ‘Felicity could make a wake sound like a riot. Clarice and her husband recently spent a fortune on an indoor pool that could house the Olympics, so now every invitation comes in an evening dress and swimwear form. Clarice just likes to be different.’
‘Evening dress and designer swimwear,’ Kim had said tartly. ‘The competition must be fierce.’
‘I wouldn’t know.’ They’d arrived back at Kane Electrical and Lucas had driven smoothly into his parking space before turning to her, resting his arm casually on the back of her seat. ‘I prefer au naturel, myself, but if I have to wear something a pair of old jeans will do.’
The mental pictures that had flashed on to the screen of her mind had taken some working through, but by the time Kim had left the building later that day she’d managed to get her errant thoughts under control. Just.
However, the image of a green-eyed, red-haired beauty had stayed with her, along with the uncomfortable knowledge that the only item of swimwear she possessed was a very functional one-piece that had seen better days. She had bought the bikini and matching sarong the next day.
‘If you go out into the garden with Melody I’ll bring the coffee in a minute,’ Kim offered coolly once they were in the kitchen and Lucas was standing by the open back door.
He looked very dark and masculine in her little limed-oak kitchen and every bi
t as disturbing as the most erotic of her dreams.
‘No hurry.’ Melody had nestled herself comfortably in his arms, half-turned so that her fair head was resting against his collarbone and her face was turned towards Kim. ‘We’re fine.’
He was making no secret of the fact that he was enjoying looking at her, and Kim was distinctly conscious of the briefness of the bikini and the deep V between her tingling breasts. And of Melody next to his heart. The pose was relaxed and Lucas looked natural, like a father. It sent such whirling panic through her she almost dropped the coffee pot.
Once in the garden Lucas refused Kim’s offer of the deck-chair and lay sprawled out at her feet after insisting she be seated. It caused her equilibrium untold problems to see his dark head at a level with her thighs, his long, lean muscled body propped on one elbow as he surveyed Melody splashing in the sunlit water.
‘A water baby.’ His deep voice was lazy and amused and Kim bitterly resented his imperturbability when she hardly knew where to put herself.
‘She’s always loved the water.’ It was tight and stiff but the best she could do. She paused a moment, trying to make her voice normal before she asked, ‘Why are you here, Lucas?’
‘Because it’s a beautiful day, Maggie is in America and I thought you might be able to use a friend’s company,’ he said quietly, still with his gaze directed at the small figure in front of them.
