From New York With Love: Rumours on the Red Carpet / Rapunzel in New York / Sizzle in the City. Nikki Logan

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СКАЧАТЬ all the world as if he was used to people licking his highly polished handmade Italian leather shoes...

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      Lucien continued to hold Cyn’s now trembling hand and waited in silence for her to gather her breath as she looked up at him between long and silky lashes with eyes a dark and mysterious cobalt blue.

      Those eyes became shadowed with apprehension as she gave another nervous flick of her little pink tongue over the moist fullness of her perfectly shaped lips. ‘The same Lucien Steele who owns Steele Technology, Steele Media, Steele Atlantic Airline and Steele Industries, as well as all those other Steele Something-or-Others?’ she murmured faintly.

      He shrugged. ‘It seemed like a good idea to diversify.’

      She determinedly pulled her hand from his grasp before tightly gripping the top of the balustrade. ‘The same Lucien Steele who’s a zillionaire?’

      ‘I believe you said that already...’ Lucien nodded.

      She drew in a deep breath, obviously completely unaware of how it tightened the material of her dress across her breasts and succeeded in outlining the fullness of those—aroused?—nipples. Nipples that were a delicate pink or a succulent rose? Whatever their colour, he was sure they would taste delicious. Sweet and juicy, and oh so ripe and responsive as he licked and suckled them.

      He had noticed the woman he now knew to be Cynthia Hammond the moment he’d entered Felix and Simone Carew’s penthouse apartment a short time ago. It had been impossible not to as she’d stood alone at the back of the opulent room, her hair a sleek and glossy unadorned black as it fell silkily to just below her shoulders, her eyes that deep cobalt blue in the beautiful pale delicacy of her face.

      She wore a strapless ankle-length gown of that same deep blue, leaving the tops of her breasts, shoulders and arms completely bare. The smoothness of her skin was a beautiful pearly white unlike any other Lucien had ever seen: a pale ivory tinted lightly pink, luminescent. Smoothly delicate and pearly skin his fingers itched to touch and caress.

      The simple style of that silky blue gown allowed it to cling to every curvaceous inch of her full breasts, slender waist and gently flaring hips, so much so that Lucien had questioned whether or not she wore anything beneath it.

      He still questioned it...

      But what had really made him take notice of her, even more than her natural beauty or the pearly perfection of her skin, was the fact that instead of moving towards him, as every other person in the room had done, this pale and delicately beautiful woman had instead taken advantage of his arrival to slip quietly from the room and go outside onto the balcony.

      Nor had she returned by the time Lucien had finally managed to extract himself from the—what had she called it a few moments ago? The licking of his ‘highly polished handmade Italian leather shoes’. His curiosity piqued—and very little piqued his jaded palate nowadays!—Lucien hadn’t been able to resist coming out onto the balcony to look for her the moment he had managed to escape all that cloying attention.

      She drew in another deep breath now before speaking, causing the fullness of her breasts to once again swell deliciously over the bodice of that clinging blue gown.

      ‘I really do apologise for my rudeness, Mr Steele. It’s no excuse, but I’m really not having a good evening—and my rudeness to you means that it has just got so much worse!’ she conceded with another pained wince. ‘But that is really no reason for me to have been rude about you—or to you.’

      He quirked one dark brow. ‘I don’t think you know me well enough as yet to speak with any authority on whether or not I deserve for you to be rude to me or about me,’ he drawled mockingly.

      ‘Well...no...’ She was obviously slightly unnerved by his emphasis on the words ‘as yet’... ‘But—’ She gave a shake of her head, causing that silky and completely straight black hair to glide across the bareness of her shoulders and caress tantalisingly across the tops of her breasts. ‘I still shouldn’t have been so outspoken about someone I only know about from the media.’

      ‘Especially when we all know how inaccurate the media can be?’ he drawled wryly.

      ‘Exactly!’ She nodded enthusiastically before just as quickly pausing to eye him uncertainly. ‘Don’t you own something like ninety per cent of the worldwide media?’

      ‘That would be contrary to monopoly regulations,’ he drawled dismissively.

      ‘Do zillionaires bother with little things like regulations?’ she teased.

      He chuckled huskily. ‘They do if they don’t want their zillionaire butts to end up in court!’

      Thia felt what was becoming a familiar quiver down the length of her spine at the sound of this man’s throaty laughter. As she also acknowledged that, for all this man unnerved her, she was actually enjoying herself—possibly for the first time since arriving in New York.

      ‘Are you cold?’

      Thia had no chance to confirm or deny that she was before Lucien Steele removed his evening jacket and placed it about the bareness of her shoulders. It reached almost down to her knees and smelt of the freshness of those lemons as his warmth surrounded her, and of the more insidious and earthy smell of the man himself.

      ‘No, really—’

      ‘Leave it.’ Both his hands came down onto the shoulders of the jacket as she would have reached up and removed it.

      Thia shivered anew as she felt the warmth of those long and elegant hands even through the material of his jacket. A shiver entirely due to the presence of this overwhelming man—also the reason for her earlier shiver—rather than any chill in the warm evening air...

      His hands left her shoulders reluctantly as he moved to stand beside her once again, that pale gaze—silver?—once again intent on her face. The snug fit of his evening shirt revealed that his shoulders really were that wide, his chest muscled, his waist slender above lean hips and long legs; obviously Lucien Steele didn’t spend all of his days sitting in boardrooms and adding to his billions.

      ‘Why aren’t you having a good evening?’ he prompted softly.

      Why? Because this visit to New York hadn’t turned out to be anything like Thia had imagined it would be. Because she had once again been brought to a party and then quickly abandoned by—well, Jonathan certainly wasn’t her boyfriend, but she had certainly thought of him as a friend. A friend who had disappeared with their hostess within minutes of their arrival, leaving her to the untender mercies of New York’s finest.

      Latterly she wasn’t having a good evening because she was far too aware of the man standing beside her—of the way the warmth and seductive smell of Lucien Steele’s tailored jacket made her feel as if she was surrounded by the man himself.

      And lastly because Thia had no idea how to deal with the unprecedented arousal now coursing through her body!

      She gave a shrug. ‘I don’t enjoy parties like this one.’

      ‘Why not?’

      She grimaced, taking care not to insult this man for a second time this evening. ‘It’s just a personal choice.’

      He nodded. ‘And where СКАЧАТЬ