to follow its tapering path down beneath his belt buckle to…somewhere.
‘Oh, er…er…hi. Sorry.’ She backed out again into the foyer.
Connor looked after the closing door with some amusement. He began to regret postponing checking into a hotel. The last thing he needed was to alert Miss Sophy Woodruff to the suddenness of his arrangements. But who could have guessed she’d be so early to work?
He felt an intrigued little buzz in his veins. For a first glimpse, she had been nothing like he’d expected. Big soft eyes and sensitive, passionate mouths didn’t go with tough little operators.
Unless, of course, they were her stock-in-trade. Perfect for sucking in middle-aged pigeons.
Outside in the foyer, Sophy tried to unscramble her brain. Whew. It took a few seconds to get the chest image out of her mind. Who needed to watch reruns of Die Hard with men like him around?
But, for goodness’ sake, who could do any kind of a decent search in the presence of a semi-naked man? He was a damned nuisance. The cheek of him, treating the ladies’ room like his own private en suite, even if it was barely six thirty.
And why, now she came to think of it, had she given ground? Whose rooms were they? If any of her fellow members of the Avengers netball team had been present, they’d have been yelling, ‘Attack. Attack. Evict the intruder.’
She braced herself, and walked back in.
He was buttoning his shirt. Too late, though. That first impression was already seared into her brain. He might just as well have emerged dripping from a plunge in a weedy pond, his shirt clinging and transparent, for all the good it was doing him now.
At the sound of her step he flickered a glance over her from beneath his dark lashes. She knew that look. It was the hunter’s assessment of her curves and sexual availability, as automatic to wolves and other male beasts as breathing.
‘This is the mothers’ room,’ she asserted. His dark eyes sharpened beneath their dark lashes, and a sudden tension in the room seemed to affect her voice with an unwelcome throatiness. ‘In case you didn’t know.’
‘I did know.’ He rinsed his razor under the tap and gave it a couple of shakes. She waited for some sign he’d received the hint, but he resumed shaving with cool unconcern.
So who was he, what was he, that Millie had been obliged to make way for him? He didn’t look like any of the doctors she knew.
She made a quick survey of the floor and surfaces. The cleaners had already done their work by the time she’d come in yesterday evening, but someone else might have picked the letter up after she’d left and thought it was rubbish. She glanced about for the bin and spotted it tucked under the sink. Directly in line with the man’s long, elegantly shod feet.
Right. She straightened her shoulders, cleared her throat and stated with cool authority, ‘Look, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you’ll have to finish that up somewhere else. There is a men’s room further along.’ She opened the door and held it wide with graceful, though determined, insistence.
Seconds ticked by, until she began to wonder if he’d even heard what she’d said, then he flashed her a lazy, long-lashed glance. ‘I don’t think so.’
To her intense indignation he remained as immovable as a tree trunk, continuing to scrape the foam from his handsome jaw as if he had all the time in the world. After a charged second in which her brain was jostled by a million incredulous thoughts about calling the police or the state emergency services for back-up, he had the nerve to add, ‘No need to panic.’
Panic. Who was panicking? Even if such tall, dark sexiness was a rarity at the Alexandra, Sophy Woodruff was perfectly well able to deal with it, in the mothers’ room or anywhere else.
Forced to, if she didn’t want to look like an idiot, she let the door swing shut, as, without the slightest interest in her wishes, he started on the moustache area. Naturally her eyes were drawn to watch the delicate operation. Before she could properly drag them away, he paused and the corners of his mouth edged up a little.
‘I’ll be out of your way in a few seconds. Don’t let my presence make you nervous.’
His voice might have risen from some bottomless inner well of chocolate liqueur, so appealing its deep timbre was to the clinically trained ear. Or would have been, if it hadn’t been for the subtle mockery in it.
‘Nervous?’ She gave a careless laugh. ‘My only concern is that at any minute now mothers may need to come in here to nurse their babies.’
He glanced at his watch. ‘At six thirty-six?’
‘Well, certainly.’ It was only a bit of a lie. In truth, the clinics didn’t usually open until seven-thirty, but in an emergency they very well might open earlier. ‘There could be early appointments. I think you should be aware that this room is intended for the sole use of mothers.’
‘Ah.’ A gleam lit his dark eyes. ‘Then in that case we’d both better leave.’
Without waiting for her reply, he turned back to his reflection. Shaving foam outlined his mouth, highlighting its chiselled perfection, the top lip straight and stern, the lower one sensual in that ruthless, masculine way. Mouths could be deceptive, though. In terms of kissing, sometimes even the most promising lips could end up being a disappointment. It all depended on the proficiency of the kisser. And the chemistry with the kissee.
Connor O’Brien’s razor hand arrested in mid-air and his eyes locked with hers.
‘Missed a bit, have I?’
The depth of knowing amusement in his glance burnt her to the soles of her feet.
‘Pardon?’ she said, forcing herself to hold that mocking gaze and ignore the pinkening tide flooding to her hairline. ‘Are you asking for my advice? I’m afraid I can’t help you. I know very little about men’s hair-growth problems.’
With supreme dignity, she turned away and made an emphatic effort to search.
Connor smiled to himself, noting Miss Sophy Woodruff’s apparent sensitivity with a pleasurable leap of surprise. It was rare to draw a blush in a woman, and strangely stirring. If she was the cold opportunist Sir Frank suspected, her ability to colour up was quite an accomplishment.
She was paused now in the middle of the room, making a slow twirl in search of something, giving him ample opportunity to observe her undulating curves, long slim legs and slender, graceful neck. He wouldn’t have expected Elliott Fraser to risk everything over a scrubber, but that grainy photo had hardly done her justice.
He wondered what she was searching for.
‘I humbly apologise for intruding on your sacred female space,’ he said, in a bid to tempt her to turn his way again, the better to drink in more of her oval face. Luminous blue eyes—or had her lavender shirt turned them violet?—fringed by thick black lashes. Rosy lips against pale creamy skin. Enough to make any man’s mouth water. ‘No threat intended,’ he added soothingly.
Sophy sent him a sardonic glance. A man caught in flagrante shouldn’t try to flirt his way out of trouble. She wished now she’d called Security and had him thrown out.
‘Do
