Charlotte isn’t feeling well. I’m taking her up to bed.’
The journalist gave an I-just-got-the-scoop-of-a-lifetime smile. ‘I’m sure she’ll enjoy that.’
Lottie wrenched out of his hold once the lift doors had pinged to a close. ‘Have you gone completely mad? What the hell are you playing at? She’ll tell everyone we’re dating!’
‘So?’
‘So?’ She glared at him. ‘So? You don’t date. Remember? You have sex with women, then dump them before they get their clothes back on.’
He scratched at his jaw, the sound of his stubble rasping against his fingers loud in the silence. ‘Mmm, you may have a point there. This could be very bad for my reputation.’
Lottie spread her hands, glaring at him furiously. ‘Your reputation? What about mine? It’ll be over every newspaper by morning that I was whisked up to your penthouse like some silly little floozy who can’t wait to get naked with you.’
His eyes ran over her jeans and cotton shirt, wrinkling his nose as if she were wearing a bin liner. A used one. ‘Nah, they’ll never buy it.’
She folded her arms across her chest and scowled at him. ‘What? I suppose my breasts aren’t big enough.’
His eyes went to her breasts, lingered there for a moment like a warm caress. ‘Your breasts are fine.’
‘Is it because I’ve got a working brain between my ears?’
‘On the contrary. I find your intelligence a big turn-on.’ His eyes smouldered as they went to her mouth. ‘But then, I don’t think there’s a man alive who doesn’t get off on a smart mouth and a quick tongue.’
Lottie felt a lava-hot blush creep up over her face. Heat flowed through her body like a flood of fire, igniting her core so that it pulsed and throbbed with a hollow ache that was shockingly primitive. Her mind had any number of reasons—literally thousands of reasons—to keep her distance from Lucca Chatsfield but her body had somehow lost connection with Ground Control. It was running on autopilot, wired to some primal frequency that had no relation to common sense.
She found herself wondering what it would be like to taste him intimately. To run her tongue down the length of him, to taste the male essence of him. To feel him shudder and convulse and flood in ultimate pleasure. To feel his skin slick with sweat against her own.
He moved a step closer and brushed against her cheek with a fingertip. ‘You really are burning up, aren’t you?’
His pelvis was just inches from hers. She could feel the cold metal buckle of his belt against her belly through the thin cotton of her shirt. She could feel her pulse revving like a Formula One car on the starting line. Broohm. Broohm. Broohm.
Lottie didn’t dare lock gazes with him. She kept her eyes trained on the V of his shirt where some dark curly hairs were showing. She knew she should step back. Why wasn’t she stepping back? Her feet felt like they were stuck to the floor. ‘Maybe I’m coming down with something.’
‘Hope it’s not catching.’
She looked at his shirt button. His chest hair was too much of a heady reminder of the potent hormones that were surging around his body. ‘I’m sure your immunity is far superior to mine.’
He gave a light chuckle and stepped back as the doors of the lift opened. ‘This is our stop.’
Lottie stalled outside the penthouse and eyed him warily. ‘I thought you said separate rooms.’
‘There’s a separate suite off this one.’ He held the door open. ‘All the Chatsfield hotels have multiple-suite penthouses.’
‘Do the doors have locks?’
‘What?’ He flashed a grin at her. ‘Are you worried you might be tempted to gate crash one of my orgies?’
She gave him a gelid look. ‘I hope my suite has a pair of industrial-size earplugs.’
‘I don’t snore if that’s what’s worrying you.’
‘You probably aren’t asleep long enough between switchovers of bedmates to get to the snoring stage,’ she muttered.
He laughed as he tossed his jacket over the back of the nearest sofa. ‘You’re really good for my ego, cara mia. You make me sound like some sort of go-all-night superstud.’
She forced herself to look him in the eye. ‘How many would you do in one night?’
He did that little lip-shrug thing again. ‘Depends.’
‘On?’
He undid another couple of the buttons on his shirt. ‘Chemistry.’
‘I guess we’re not talking about the periodic table of the elements.’
His smile crinkled up the corners of his eyes. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll try and tone it down. I might even abstain for the night.’
Lottie gave him a look. ‘Long service leave?’
He screwed up his forehead as if mentally calculating the years. ‘Yep, I reckon I more than qualify.’ He scratched at his chin stubble again. ‘Let me see now … my first time was when I was—’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Please spare me the details.’
He scrubbed a hand through his hair, making it all tousled, which somehow made him look even more lethally attractive. ‘You want something for that headache?’
‘I don’t—I mean, I think I’ll just have a little rest,’ Lottie said, backing away towards the adjoining door. ‘What time will you be finished with your business appointment?’
‘That’s not until tomorrow morning.’
‘But I thought you had to be here by today?’ She frowned as she tried to recall the conversation with her sister. ‘I’m sure Madeleine said you had to be in Monte Carlo by Wednesday.’
‘That’s because I didn’t want to leave anything to chance.’ He rolled back the cuffs of his shirt over his forearms, focusing on the task with what seemed to her a rather pointed concentration.
‘So this appointment is pretty important to you?’
He looked at her then but his expression was difficult to decipher. ‘It’s just something I’ve had my eye on for a while. No big deal.’
‘Is the something you’ve had your eye on female?’ Lottie wished she hadn’t asked but the words had tumbled out before she could stop them.
A light of amusement twinkled in his chocolate-dark eyes. ‘How’d you guess?’
Two hours later Lottie was led by Lucca into his friend’s exclusive lingerie boutique in one of the cobbled side streets in the centre of Monte Carlo. The friend was female—of course—but at least fifteen years older than Lucca, which somehow made Lottie feel a little less peevish, but only
