Count Toussaint's Pregnant Mistress. Kate Hewitt

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СКАЧАТЬ She gave a sideways glance and saw how calm and unconcerned he looked. Determined, resolute even.

      The lift came to a halt and the doors opened directly into the suite, which took up the whole floor.

      ‘Come,’ Luc said, and Abby followed him into the sumptuous living-room, all velvet sofas and spindly gilt-tables, with about an acre of Turkish carpet. Abby stood in the doorway, mindlessly smoothing the silk of her gown, feeling shy and uncertain despite her earlier bravado.

      She knew it wasn’t the luxurious suite of rooms that put her on edge. In her years as a concert pianist she’d seen and experienced her fair share of luxury. No, it wasn’t the room. It was the man.

      He’d casually dropped the key-card the concierge had given him on a side table and shed his suit jacket, the muscles of his back and shoulders rippling under the smooth, silken fabric of his shirt. For a brief moment his body was in profile, his face in shadow. Abby didn’t think she was imagining the grim set to his jaw, or the accompanying shiver that rippled through her body at the sight of him and the darkness emanating from within that beautiful body.

      Yet then he turned to her with a little smile, his expression light and easy, and she wondered if she’d been imagining it after all.

      ‘Aren’t you going to come in?’ he asked, laughter lurking in his voice, and Abby lowered her gaze.

      ‘I…’ She licked her lips. Now was not the time for cold feet, surely? ‘I’m not sure.’

      Luc frowned and strode towards her, his hands coming to curl around her shoulders. ‘Abby…are you afraid?’

      ‘Not…exactly.’ Abby tried to laugh, but it came out wobbly and uncertain. ‘Not of you,’ she amended. ‘More of…the situation.’ She licked her lips again, hurrying to explain. ‘And I’m not afraid. I just…don’t know what to do. I know what I said, but…’

      Luc’s hands relaxed on her shoulders, sliding down her bare arms to leave a wake of goosebumps before he loosely linked her fingers with his own.

      ‘We can simply sit and chat,’ he told her gently. ‘I enjoyed talking to you.’

      ‘I did too,’ Abby admitted. ‘That is, talking to you, not to me.’

      ‘Abby.’ Luc chuckled softly as he brushed her cheek with his knuckles. ‘I understand.’

      Abby gave a little nervous laugh. ‘You must think me incredibly gauche,’ she said and he raised his eyebrows.

      ‘Not at all.’

      ‘Really?’ She laughed again, the sound more normal and easy. ‘Because, listening to myself, I think I sound gauche.’ She met his gaze directly, her own gaze open and candid. ‘I don’t know what to say or do.’

      ‘There’s no script, is there?’ Luc asked. ‘Or did I not get the memo?’

      ‘No script,’ Abby confirmed as, still holding her by the hand, he led her to the sofa. ‘But surely certain things are…expected?’

      ‘Abby, I promise you, I have no expectations. I was amazed to see you in the bar, and I’m even more amazed to see you here.’

      They were sitting on the sofa now, Luc’s thigh nearly pressed against her own. Abby slipped off her heels and tucked her stocking-clad feet under the silken folds of her gown.

      ‘Anyway,’ Luc continued, ‘I don’t think you gauche at all. Refreshing, I would have put it.’

      ‘Isn’t that just a nice way of meaning “different”?’

      ‘Different is good.’

      ‘Different means different,’ Abby insisted. ‘Abnormal, weird.’

      Luc reached out to touch her ankle through the folds of her gown. It was an almost absent-minded caress, his long, lean fingers lingering on the delicate bones even as his eyes, and his smile, never left her face. ‘Is that how you’ve felt?’

      ‘Sometimes.’ Why, Abby wondered, was it so easy to talk to him like this? To admit, confess things, she never had before even to herself? ‘Piano was pretty much my life from about age five,’ she elaborated with a shrug. ‘I stood out.’

      ‘At school?’

      She shook her head. ‘Not really. I was home-tutored from age eight so I could devote more time to music.’

      ‘Those kids on Hampstead Heath, then?’ Luc guessed, and Abby wondered how he knew so much so quickly. ‘Them?’

      ‘Yes,’ she agreed wryly. ‘Them.’

      In the ensuing silence Abby felt herself staring at his leg, at the taut muscle underneath the dark wool, as if fascinated by that one limb, and in truth she was. She wanted to touch it. Him. Wanted to feel the hard muscle underneath, to slide her hand along his hot skin…

      What was she thinking? Feeling? Whatever it was, it coursed through her, electric and magical, as he’d described it. It made her breathless, heady and shy, even as her hand lifted almost of its own accord, her body emboldened even if her mind was not.

      Her eyes flew to Luc’s face. He was smiling at her, too much knowledge glinting in his own eyes. He reached out and stroked her cheek with one finger, and Abby could barely keep from shuddering. She found herself leaning in to that little caress, openly, wantonly, until her cheek was cupped in Luc’s hand.

      He hesitated, and Abby saw the concern and doubt flicker across his face. She closed her eyes to it, not wanting this moment to end. She wanted it to go on for ever, to stretch it out and savour each precious second.

      ‘Abby…’ His voice came out as a breath, a plea. Abby’s only response was to turn her head so her lips brushed his palm. She acted on instinct, on need, knowing this was foreign territory, frightening and dangerous, yet exciting and wonderful too. How could she feel so much? She felt as if she’d been numb all her life and was only now melting into emotion, springing into vitality.

      Luc leaned forward and kissed her, his lips softly brushing hers. Abby’s breath hitched at the contact. Twenty-four years old and she’d never been kissed before—not properly, anyway. She’d had her fair share of air kisses, the European double-cheek kiss and some perfunctory pecks. It was all part of the entertainment business.

      But this…this was wonderful. And she wanted more. She deepened the kiss, surprising herself, and perhaps Luc as well. She was untouched, unschooled, but need was the best teacher and it drove her to open her mouth, to touch her tongue lightly to his; his other hand came up to cradle her face as his tongue began its own exploration, and Abby felt herself spinning, her breathing grew ragged, her heart racing as it never had before.

      She heard Luc’s breath hitch as well and felt a sharp thrill at the thought that perhaps he was as affected as she was by what was undoubtedly a small, ordinary kiss for most people. Except right now nothing felt small or ordinary; it felt big and special, and wonderfully exciting and new.

      Her hands bunched on his shirt, her fingernails snagging on the buttons before she smoothed her palms out, felt the muscles of his chest leap and jerk under her hands. Luc’s lips trailed along her jawbone, and then he lowered his head СКАЧАТЬ