another fantastic idea. Thank you.” She slid her PDA into the clutch bag she held. “I’ll find my own way home, and see you in the office—”
“Home?” He tamped down on the unexpected surge of temper, but still found himself glaring at her. “You cannot be serious.”
“Of course I’m serious,” she said, with that calm gaze of hers that he suddenly found enraging, not peaceful or relaxing at all. “I understand that you are used to all manner of late evenings and early mornings, and more power to you. I, however, require far more sleep in order to function.”
“This may very well be the party of the year,” Lucas said mildly, waving his hand at the parade of celebrities, the overwrought chandeliers up above, the walls draped in deep magenta and studded with crystals. “You miss a single moment of it at your peril.”
“It’s a bit early in the year to be making such pronouncements, don’t you think?” She shrugged. “Besides, I believe the intricacies of the London party circuit fall more within your purview than mine.”
“I want you to stay with me,” he said, baldly. He saw her stiffen, saw her eyes widen. He smiled. “After all, this is the perfect place to drum up excitement for the gala, is it not? Who knows what other luminaries we can rope into attending?”
Her brown eyes were wary—and furious, he noted with growing interest. Why should she be furious? But he suspected he knew. He felt it, too, the tightening noose around them. The pull of it.
The difference was, he was not fighting it. Much.
“Have I misunderstood something?” she asked in the tone of one who was quite certain she had misunderstood nothing. “I was under the impression that the collection of celebrities was your job—a job you are quite good at, actually.” She waved her hand at the crowd around them. “And, of course, these are your sort of people, anyway.”
“Famous?” he asked idly. “Shockingly attractive? Filthy rich and well connected?”
“Bored,” she retorted with that sharp smile and a matching glint in her eyes. “Desperate. As anyone would be, were their self-worth predicated on how many mentions they received in a glossy magazine.”
He eased back against the settee and watched the flush of heat that stole across her face. Passion, he thought with deep satisfaction. And she was not happy about it.
But he was.
“As opposed to the deep social and philosophical relevance of party planning for a department store?” Lucas asked mildly, baiting her. “I can certainly see where your exalted sense of worth comes from.”
She froze, her eyes shooting sparks at him, temper storming across her normally impassive face. It fascinated him.
“I have a job,” she said from between her teeth. “One that I am very, very good at. My self-worth derives from my achievements. Not my father’s surname.”
That might have landed a blow on a man less used to hearing such things and in far more offensive terms. But Lucas only relaxed against the settee, stretching his arm along the back and smiling at her.
“You just finished telling me that I’m good at the same job,” he said, making his tone deliberately insulting, wanting to see the fire in her blaze higher. Hotter. “How difficult can it be?”
“Is anything difficult for you?” she asked, her voice scathing, her hands curling into fists in her lap. “Or do you just float through life making snide commentary and endless innuendos, forever the darling of the paparazzi and very little else? How proud you must be. How deep, indeed, your still waters run.”
He was uncomfortably hard, and delighted with her temper, even though she directed it at him. He, after all, could take it. Temper did not upset him; it usually only intrigued him, since he so rarely lost his own. Still, he was a man, and her words made him long to teach her all manner of lessons. Soon, he thought, watching her proprietarily. Very soon.
“Are we discussing masks, Grace?” he asked quietly, angling close enough to breathe in her scent. “Because I’ve been waiting to talk about yours since the moment we met. What are you so afraid of?”
“Becoming you, of course,” she threw at him immediately, with all of her customary ice and that fire that he instinctively knew was blazing bright underneath. “Becoming anything like you. A zombie with a million-dollar smile.”
“That would hurt my feelings—” he began, fighting a smile.
“If you had any,” she finished for him, and rolled her eyes. “I know full well that you don’t.”
“If I believed you,” he corrected her, his voice quiet but firm. He waited until her gaze found his. “But we both know that you’ll say whatever it takes to maintain this fiction of yours. That you do not want me. That you cannot feel this thing between us, this pull. What would happen if you told the truth, Grace? What then?”
The party was loud around them, a swirling cloak of laughter and music and the whirl of interchangeable faces, but Lucas hardly noticed any of it. There was only this forgotten settee in a darkened corner of the expansive room. There was only this woman. There was only this need.
“Oh,” she breathed, not looking away, her eyes narrowing. “I didn’t understand. This is still about your ego, isn’t it? I won’t fall at your feet and beg for your attention, so there must be a grand conspiracy. There must be a detailed explanation. Masks and fictions and reasons.”
“Not at all,” he said, unable to keep the laughter from his voice, though it only seemed to stoke the fire within him. “Only the truth.”
“Here’s the truth, then,” she said, her voice dangerous, honey and fire. She shifted closer, her need to slap at him and show him her power clearly overcoming any common sense. He needed only to lean forward and he could taste her.
“I am all ears,” he murmured, the laughter gone, every part of him focused on that lush, full mouth so close to his.
Her smile was like a razor, her voice like a whip. “If I were to make a list of all the things that I hate in a man, every single characteristic you possess would be on that list.”
“I have no doubt,” he said, raising his gaze to catch hers. Holding them both captive for a long, hot breath. “But that doesn’t change the fact you want me inside of you. Right now. All night. Until you can’t stand the pleasure any longer.”
He saw her silent gasp as her breath fled her, saw the color flood her face, but most of all he saw the heat in her deep brown eyes. The carnal wonder. The need.
His, he thought. She was his.
“Your conceit is rivaled only by how deeply you are mistaken,” she managed to say, but her voice was no more than a thread of sound, and her eyes were too wide.
“The facts remain the same,” he taunted her softly.
“I don’t want you,” she said, enunciating every word. But he could see how it cost her, how she fought for control. “Is that clear enough for you? Is there any room for error? You bore me.”
But she didn’t move away. If anything, she angled her body closer.
