Call Me Cupid. Heidi Rice

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СКАЧАТЬ hot, drawn-out kiss, promising all sorts of things that got him very excited indeed. And it hadn’t even been a line. He really did think she was more stunning than the speckles and stripes of the elusive flower.

      When she finally pulled away, she rested her forehead against his and breathed out hard.

      ‘Didn’t you say you...had something to do?’ he said hoarsely.

      She nodded wordlessly and he let his arms drop.

      As much as he didn’t want to let her go, he didn’t want to interrupt things later on. Daniel didn’t want to be distracted by anything next time he had Chloe in his arms. Not for hours and hours and hours.

EIGHT

      Chloe ran quickly and lightly down the narrow hallway that led to her bedroom. Once inside she pulled the duvet straight and plumped a pillow, then turned her attention to the other item that needed to be dealt with: the graduation photo sitting on her bedside table.

      Ugh. Frizzy hair and badly applied eyeshadow.

      She only displayed it in the privacy of her bedroom because she was really, really proud of her qualifications, even if the tight smiles of her parents standing behind her reminded her how they’d have preferred for her to go to a big-hitting university and get a ‘proper’ degree.

      She couldn’t risk just putting it face down, so she pulled the underwear drawer of her dressing table open and stuffed the frame under the tangle of straps and things. But the sight of some of her better underwear sitting in the top of the drawer made her stop and think.

      She hadn’t been planning on anyone seeing her underwear when she’d got dressed this morning. It was nude-coloured and functional. Nice enough, just not pretty like those were.

      And you’re planning on someone seeing your underwear now?

      Chloe thought for a moment.

      Hell, yeah.

      The problem was that her current bra was strapless and her dress had spaghetti straps. It would be weird if she changed into her eye-wateringly expensive silk and lace set and went out there with hot-pink straps showing. Not very subtle.

      Forget subtle. Ditch the dress and go back out there in just the pink satin with the creamy lace trim.

      Chloe let out a gasp. She couldn’t, could she? She’d never been quite that bold before—at least, not on a first night together. It wasn’t her.

      Or was it?

      The Chloe she’d invented for herself to grow into would do it. She was sassy and worldly-wise and confident. Maybe she never had before, but that was because she liked a man to do all the running, to prove he was interested. And, deep down, if she admitted it to herself, she liked it that way because then it was him not her who had to endure that horrible feeling of free fall once he’d made the first move and was waiting to see if she’d accept or reject him.

      But this time it was different. The way Daniel had been looking at her...touching her... Well, she was pretty sure he wasn’t going to try and fend her off this time.

      Maybe she needed to do this. Not to get him to prove anything, but to prove something to herself.

      Quickly, before she could talk herself out of it, she stripped off her underwear and reached for the pink silk. Once it was on, she turned to inspect herself in the mirror.

      There were a few lumps and bumps she wished weren’t there. After prodding her stomach, which jiggled a little, she looked longingly at the functional bra and knickers and sundress on the floor. There was something about walking out there as she was now that made her feel very...naked.

      She looked herself in the eye and pulled herself up straight, sucked things in a little. That was what New Chloe would do. So she had a few curves, but Daniel didn’t seem to mind, and she wasn’t that blobby little nineteen-year-old any more. New Chloe knew she worked out, that she was toned. New Chloe knew she looked good.

      She bent down, picked up her discarded clothes and threw them in the wardrobe. A pair of hot-pink heels winked at her from inside and she quickly reached for them and slid them on her feet. Then, without looking back, she strutted down the corridor back to the living room, reminding herself to breathe.

      Since Daniel had picked up a framed photo of her on holiday last year, she took the opportunity of reaching for the dimmer switch and taking the lighting down to a more intimate level as she entered the room.

      The change in brightness made him look up and round to where she was standing.

      He dropped the frame.

      It bounced on the floor but didn’t break.

      The look on his face right then was all Chloe needed to wipe all those years of insecurity away. Never had she felt so feminine, so beautiful...so wanted.

      She could pull this off, she really could. New Chloe had been a project that had worked from the outside in, but she had the feeling that after tonight that version of herself would no longer be a work in progress. One night with Daniel Bradford would banish the Mouse for ever and cement New Chloe into place. The transformation would be complete.

      Since Daniel didn’t seem capable of movement at the moment, let alone speech, she walked slowly towards him, crouched to pick up the picture—aware that the angle of her knees and the high heels were doing amazing things for her legs—and handed it back to him and nodded towards the bookcase. He replaced it without taking his eyes off her.

      And then, taking advantage of his paralysed state, which only gave her some kind of weird exultant power, she gave him a gentle shove and he sat down suddenly on the sofa. She had one knee on the sofa beside his leg, preparing to slide onto his lap, when he shifted slightly and reached beneath him. He pulled out the book—his book—that she’d thrown there earlier. Knowing they were definitely not going to be doing any reading in the next few hours, Chloe took it from his fingers and tossed it onto the adjacent sofa cushion.

      As she did so a slip of coloured paper dislodged itself from the pages and fluttered to land on Daniel’s lap. He picked it up and stared at it. Chloe took the opportunity to place her other knee on the sofa and sank down until soft, rounded bottom met hard thighs. She attempted to pluck the paper from his hands, but he wouldn’t let go.

      ‘What’s this?’ he asked, obviously having recovered the use of his tongue. Chloe wasn’t very happy about that. For the money she’d paid for this bra and the way it made her boobs look he should have been drooling, his tongue thick in his mouth, for at least another half-hour.

      He frowned. ‘Who...? Why have you got this?’

      It was then she realised it was a photograph.

      ‘That’s me,’ he said, sounding slightly dazed, ‘in the middle.’

      Chloe’s stomach rocketed down so hard she reckoned it had gone through the hull of her houseboat and was now wedged in the mud at the bottom of the river.

      She’d forgotten all about that photo, tucked lovingly in the back of her favourite book, the one she’d never, ever lent to anyone else. A snap someone had taken on the last day of Daniel’s tropical plants course of a СКАЧАТЬ