AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Okay,’ she said, grateful that he’d considered the fallout if the press got hold of what had just happened. And adding it to the long list of reasons why having an affair with Lukas Blackstone would be a very bad idea.
But as he leant down to kiss her forehead his thumb lingered on the pulse in her collarbone. Her breath got trapped in her lungs, the hammering pulse in her neck matching the beating pulse in her clitoris as he stroked the soft skin with deliberate purpose.
‘Later,’ he murmured, the hunger in his eyes unmistakable, the sensual smile a come-on that told her he was well aware of the effect he had on her.
As he left the room longing seared her insides, and she knew Lukas’s arrogant assumptions weren’t going to be the only problem when it came to putting an end to this liaison.
Because by far the biggest problem was her own body’s traitorous flash-fire response to him. And those volatile emotions that couldn’t seem to accept this thing for what it was—which was nothing of any importance.
* * *
Lukas strode through the apartment lobby. He shouldn’t have touched her, shouldn’t have given in to the promise of those wide pouting lips, those sparkling emerald eyes, that artlessly responsive body—and that open and forthright spirit that had captivated him right from the start. If he’d known she was a virgin he wouldn’t have gone near her.
But now he had there was no going back.
Because he couldn’t un-touch her, or un-know her, or un-taste her—and the memory of the clasp of her sex, the sweetness of her nipples tightening beneath his tongue, the shuddering pants as he thrust inside her—even that sassy little reply when he’d asked her if she was a virgin...
Not any more.
...was already driving him nuts to have her again.
It was just sex, even if it was like no sex he’d ever had before. Nothing more than insane hormones and great chemistry. It would burn itself out eventually but, until it did, he wasn’t risking going madder than he was already.
Bypassing the penthouse elevator as he always did, he shoved open the door to the emergency stairs. Jogging down twenty flights to the eleventh floor ballroom would go some way towards calming the heavy feeling in his guts.
Unfortunately, it couldn’t make him forget the sight of her on his bed, wrapped in nothing but a towel, her huge eyes confused and wary, her pale, ethereal skin flushed with pleasure.
Her relationship with and devotion to the boy was a complication, of course, not to mention her virginity. Luckily, he had become an expert at keeping his feelings and his emotional needs—if he even had them any more, which was doubtful—strictly compartmentalised ever since he was a boy himself.
He never let people get too close because that just gave them the power to hurt and disappoint him. Opening the emergency exit, he stepped into the lobby. As he crossed the thick carpeting towards the ballroom entrance, he was soon spotted. Reporters and bloggers rushed towards him firing questions.
‘Hey, Lukas, what’s happening with your long-lost nephew? Any chance he’ll be visiting the new resort with you?’
‘Why the move into the family market when you don’t have a family yourself, Lukas? Is there something you’re not telling us?’
He stopped, and the young female vlogger who had asked the question stuck her phone in his face.
‘You’ll hear the reason why when you watch the presentation,’ he said smoothly, although he was grateful when his well-trained security detail surrounded him because his blood pressure—and his irritation—was rising.
But as he continued into the ballroom, flanked by bodyguards, the flash and flare of camera phones and VT lights exploding in his face, the press of bodies, didn’t bother him as much as they usually did because his mind was focused on Bronte again—the sobs of her arousal, that smart seductive mouth, that ripe responsive body, the firm set of her chin when he’d demanded she stay and she’d defied him.
A wry smile broke over his face at the thought of seeing her again tomorrow morning.
Keeping their affair secret from the press, getting Bronte to cooperate despite her obvious reluctance, and figuring out how to curb his involvement with the boy was going to be a tough juggling act. But having Bronte O’Hara as his mistress for the next little while would be worth the effort.
No obstacle was going to be big enough to stop him from getting what he wanted. Because he now knew exactly how hot they were together. All he had to do was remind her of that—which wouldn’t be a hardship. And make sure she understood that sex was all he could offer her. But really that shouldn’t be a problem. For all her inexperience, Bronte was a realist, not a romantic.
He spotted his executive assistant in the melee as he approached the stage. His smile widened at Lisa’s sheepish expression. If Bronte agreed to the proposition he was going to make to her tomorrow, the details of which he was already milling over in his mind, he might well have to give the woman a bonus.
CHAPTER SIX
BY EIGHT-TEN THE next morning, Lukas wasn’t feeling quite so magnanimous.
He’d woken early and after consulting with one of his estate managers he’d taken an unmarked SUV to the back entrance of the house in Regent’s Park. He’d texted Bronte before he left to inform her he would be arriving in ten minutes and wanted an hour alone with her before he saw Nico. He had hoped to catch her in bed, the wintry dawn only an hour off daybreak.
Entering from the mews, he’d walked through the house’s gardens to the kitchen door, eager to see Bronte, and take care of the ache that had kept him awake most of the night.
He had an email on his phone with links to a series of mews cottages in Chelsea for Bronte to choose from. Obviously he couldn’t come here to see her—it would only confuse the boy and, anyway, for what he planned they would need complete privacy. But he was paying her friend Maureen a generous salary for her childcare expertise and the boy was four now and well again. It would do both Bronte and the child good to spend some time apart.
