Luccy, she instructed herself firmly. Gather your scattered wits together and just try to come out of this situation with some of your dignity intact.
She kept her gaze on Sin’s muscular chest—dear God, she had almost ripped his shirt off him minutes ago!— as she moistened her lips before speaking, the gesture not in the least reassuring as she instantly felt the sensitivity of their bruised fullness. ‘I don’t believe a post-mortem after the event is necessary, either,’ she told him evenly.
‘No post-mortem, Luccy,’ he assured her, gently stroking the hair at her temple now. ‘But maybe we could reassess your earlier decision not to become my “regular London girl”?’ he teased.
Her eyes widened as she looked up at him. Sin wanted to see her again? This wasn’t just some one-night thing to him while he was in London?
She swallowed hard. ‘I—could I take a shower first—alone—and think about that?’
He frowned darkly. ‘You don’t want us to meet again?’
All Luccy wanted right now was to be alone for a few minutes. She couldn’t think around this man!
‘I need to shower first,’ she insisted huskily.
‘But not together?’ He voiced his disappointment.
She would hardly be able to think while naked in the shower with an equally naked—totally distracting—Sin!
‘Luccy?’ Sin prompted as he sensed her hesitation.
She avoided his gaze. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ve always preferred to shower alone.’
Sin did mind; he could imagine nothing he would enjoy more at this moment than soaping her body all over before making love to her again under the hot spray of the shower. Neither was he particularly happy that she wanted to think about seeing him again.
What they had just shared had been extraordinary. Amazing.
But he appreciated it might have happened a little too suddenly for Luccy—for him too, if he was honest! But this was certainly not a casual one-night stand for him; Sin had every intention of seeing Luccy again whenever he was in London. Often.
But the comfort of a silk-sheeted bed in half an hour or so, when they were both showered and refreshed, would probably be more reassuring for Luccy. After all, they had the rest of the night to enjoy each other. All day tomorrow too, if Sin rescheduled his meetings. Maybe he would just cancel them indefinitely; Luccy was what interested him at the moment. Luccy, and getting to know each and every thing about her.
‘Fine,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll open a bottle of champagne and take it through to the bedroom while you’re in the bathroom, and then take a quick shower myself before joining you.’
Not too quick, Luccy hoped—because she already knew that no amount of time in the shower was going to change the fact that while Sin was taking his own shower she had every intention of leaving this suite, and the hotel.
And never seeing Sin again…
CHAPTER THREE
‘I WON’T be a moment,’ a disembodied voice called from the adjoining room as Sin stepped into the reception area.
The photographic studio, Sin would guess, eyes narrowed as he stood patiently waiting in the outer office. It was ultra-modern, all chrome, white and black furniture, with framed photographs five feet square on the pristine white walls, also in black and white, but excellent none the less.
As he would have expected.
He already knew that Lucinda Harper-O’Neill was a woman who excelled at everything she did, including her career as a photographer.
‘I’m really sorry to keep you waiting,’ that disembodied voice—Lucinda’s voice?—called out again. ‘My receptionist has just gone to lunch…’ That voice trailed off in a strangled gasp as Lucinda Harper-O’Neill came to an abrupt halt in the doorway, her face paling even as Sin turned to look at her with coolly enquiring silver-grey eyes.
At the woman who, three nights ago, had introduced herself to him only as Luccy.
She wasn’t wearing red today, her loose silk blouse the same deep sky-blue as her eyes, and pale blue jeans hugging the slimness of her hips and long, long legs. Her blue-black hair wasn’t sexily loose today, either, but secured on her crown, leaving only a wispy fringe on her creamy forehead above those wide, disbelieving eyes, the minimum of make-up on the pale oval of her face, with no enticing deep red gloss on those pouting lips.
Luccy stared aghast at the man who stood so chillingly silent across the room as he continued to look at her with those cold, unrelenting silver-grey eyes. His silence seemed to contain an air of menace, and the expertly tailored dark grey suit he wore, with a white shirt and neatly knotted silver tie, did nothing to dispel the underlying air of a tiger stalking its prey.
Sin!
What was he doing here?
More to the point, how had he known to come to the photographic studio of Lucinda Harper-O’Neill in order to find the woman he knew only as Luccy?
Why had he even wanted to find her? Hadn’t the fact that she had so abruptly left his hotel suite three nights ago been enough of a hint that she had no interest in seeing him again?
The silence between them, icily arctic on Sin’s part, tense on Luccy’s, was becoming unbearable! But not so unbearable that she intended being the first one to break it…
Something that Sin seemed aware of as his mouth thinned. ‘Lucinda Harper-O’Neill, I presume?’ he drawled with agonising mockery.
Luccy’s eyes narrowed. Obviously she was Lucinda Harper-O’Neill. The real question was, how did he know that?
She made a dismissive movement of her shoulders as she stepped fully into the reception area to sit down behind the empty desk, determined not to be cowed by this man’s unexpected appearance at her place of work. ‘What can I do for you, Sin?’
He gave a smile completely lacking in humour. ‘The way I remember it, Luccy, you’ve already done quite a lot for me already.’
Colour warmed her cheeks, a mixture of anger and embarrassment, her eyes glittering with the former emotion as she glared up at him.
How typical of a man to refer so blatantly to what happened between them in his hotel suite three nights ago! Although it hadn’t been a memory that Luccy had found too easy to forget, either…
Although she had tried. She really had. She’d inwardly cringed with self-recrimination every time she so much as thought about the physical intimacy she had shared with him. Damn it, Sin probably knew Luccy’s body more intimately than she did!
‘Very funny,’ she snapped scathingly. ‘I thought you would have returned to the States by now?’
He shrugged those broad shoulders. ‘Something else came up.’
Something to do with finding her, perhaps? ‘Well, as nice as it is to see you again, Sin,’ she lied, ‘I really am very busy today. So if there is nothing else you
