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

‘Of course I know how to—’ She broke off, eyes narrowing suspiciously. ‘You’re challenging me to get your own way again, aren’t you?’

He quirked a brow. ‘Is it working?’

Some of the tension eased from her expression. ‘Yes.’

He nodded. ‘Then that’s exactly what I’m doing.’

Cyn eyed him frustratedly. ‘Why are you so determined to keep me here?’

Lucien had absolutely no idea! Especially when he had initially made the suggestion of dinner in his apartment just to see what Cyn’s reaction would be. Boy, had that backfired on him! ‘Why are you so determined to leave?’ he came back challengingly.

‘Yep, the face of an angel and the wiles of the devil...’

Lucien heard her mutter the words irritably. ‘Sorry?’ he said. He knew exactly what Cyn had said—he just wanted to see if he could get her to say it again. Especially the part where she said he had the face of an angel...

‘Nothing.’ Cyn refused to humour him and gave a rueful shake of her head. ‘Okay, give me the T-shirt.’ She took it out of his outstretched hand before holding it up defensively in front of her breasts. ‘Why don’t you just disappear off into the kitchen while I slip off my blouse and put this on?’ she prompted as he made no effort to leave.

‘And if I’d rather stay here and watch you slip off your blouse...’

He enjoyed the flush that instantly coloured her cheeks. Enjoyed teasing Cyn, full-stop. So much so that, despite her being so disruptive and stubborn, teasing her was fast becoming one of Lucien’s favourite pastimes. Exclusively so.

‘Life is just full of little disappointments!’ she came back, with insincere sweetness.

‘Oh, it wouldn’t be a little disappointment, Cyn,’ he assured her huskily. And it wouldn’t be; Lucien could imagine nothing he would enjoy more than to see Cyn strip out of her blouse, allowing him to look his fill of those pert little breasts and plump, rose-coloured nipples.

‘Go,’ she instructed firmly.

‘And you accuse me of being bossy...’

‘You’ve made a fine art of it. I’m just doing it out of self-defence.’

Lucien gave a wicked ‘wiles of the devil’ grin. ‘Do you need defending from me?’

She eyed him irritably. ‘Now you’re deliberately twisting my words.’

He shrugged. ‘Maybe that’s because you’re trying to spoil my fun.’

She gasped. ‘Because I won’t let you stand there and gawp at me while I change my blouse?’

‘I never gawp, Cyn,’ he drawled derisively. ‘If I stayed I would just stand here quietly and appreciate.’

Her face warmed. ‘You aren’t staying.’

Lucien gave another appreciative grin; she really was cute when she got her dander up.

Cute? He had never found a woman cute in his life!

Until now...

Because Cyn, all hot and bothered and clutching his T-shirt tightly to her as if it were her only defence, was most definitely cute.

‘Okay, I’ll leave you to change,’ he murmured dryly. ‘I’ll take the bottle of wine and glasses through with me.’

‘Fine.’ She nodded distractedly.

Anything to get him out of the room while she changed her top, Lucien acknowledged ruefully as he collected up the bottle of wine and glasses before leaving. As if such a flimsy barrier—any barrier!—could have stopped him if he had decided he wanted her naked!

* * *

‘Did you have Dex follow me today...?’ Thia prompted huskily when she entered the kitchen.

Lucien turned from taking food out of the huge chrome refrigerator that took up half the space of one wall in what was a beautiful kitchen—white marble floors again, extensive kitchen units a pale grey, a black wooden work table in the middle of the vast room, silver cooking utensils hanging from a rack next to a grey and white cooker. No doubt there was a dishwasher built into one of those cabinets, too.

He hadn’t answered her question yet...

‘Lucien?’ she said softly as she lifted her replenished glass from the table and took a sip of red wine.

‘I got so distracted by how sexy you look in my T-shirt that I’ve forgotten what the question was,’ he came back dryly.

No, he hadn’t. This man didn’t forget anything. Ever. And his prevarication was answer enough. He had instructed Dex to follow her this afternoon. And Thia wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Annoyed that he had dared to have her followed at all, but also concerned as to why he continued to feel it necessary...

And sexy was the last thing she looked in Lucien’s white T-shirt. The shoulder seams hung halfway down her arms, meaning that the short sleeves finished below her elbows, and it was so wide across the chest it hung on her like a sack, so long it reached almost to her knees. Well...it didn’t hang completely like a sack, Thia realised as she glanced down. Colour once again warmed her cheeks as she saw the way the T-shirt skimmed across the tips of her breasts. Across the hard, aroused thrust of her nipples!

Even so, ridiculous was the word Thia would have used to describe her current appearance, not sexy.

‘Did you have Dex follow me today?’ she repeated determinedly.

‘I did, yes.’

‘Can I ask why?’ she prompted warily.

‘You can if you can make salad and ask at the same time.’ Lucien seemed totally relaxed as he placed the makings of a salad down on the kitchen table before returning to the fridge for steaks.

Thia rolled her eyes. ‘I’m a woman, Lucien. Multi-tasking is what we do best.’ She took the salad vegetables out of the bags and put them in the sink to wash them.

‘That sounds...interesting.’ He turned to arch mocked brows.

She was utterly charmed by this man when he became temptingly playful. And she shouldn’t allow herself to be.

It wasn’t just those twelve years in age that separated them, it was what Lucien had done in those twelve years that set them so far apart—as evidenced by all those photographs of him online, taken with the multitude of women he had briefly shared his life with. Or, more accurately, his bed.

And at the grand age of twenty-three Thia was still a virgin. Not deliberately. Not even consciously as in ‘saving herself’ for the man she loved and wanted to marry.

She had just been too busy keeping her life together since her parents died to do more than accept the occasional date, and very rarely a second from the same man. Jonathan had been the exception, but even he had become just a friend rather than a boyfriend. Thia had never been even slightly tempted to deepen their relationship into something more.

And yet in the twenty-four hours she had known Lucien Steele she seemed to have thought of nothing else but how it would feel to go to bed with him. To make love with him.

Weird.