Red-Hot Affairs. Lucy King

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СКАЧАТЬ shot from her lungs and her heart practically stopped. A weird kind of fizzing sprang to life in the pit of her stomach and she clutched at the curtain before her balance vaporised and she nearly toppled out of the window.

      Good Lord, she thought dazedly as stars spun around her head. She was fantasising. Ogling. Virtually salivating. Since when had she started doing that? She dragged in a shaky breath. Crikey, maybe she really had gone off the rails.

      Letting the binoculars dangle from the leather strap hanging around her neck, Laura sagged against the wall and willed her breathing to steady and her heart rate to slow.

      Now, of all times, when she was by herself and inches from an open window with a ten-foot drop to the ground, would really not be a good time to faint.

      Which was precisely why she ought to unwrap herself from the curtains, back away and pull herself together.

      Besides, quite apart from her precarious position, she had no business ogling men, however hot. After the traumatic collapse of her last relationship she’d sworn off the whole lousy lot of them. And even if she had been in the mood, voyeurism had never been her thing. It was sneaky. It was reckless.

      And kind of thrilling.

      Laura swallowed and blinked to clear her suddenly blurry vision. Oh, for heaven’s sake. That little thrill currently whooshing around her body could stop it right now. She was interested in the house, that was all.

      For the six weeks she’d been living in the village the manor house had been as silent as the grave, and her frustration at not being able to take a look inside had reached such a peak that if she weren’t such a law-abiding person she’d have contemplated a spot of breaking and entering.

      So when she’d heard the sound of splintering wood coming from the other side of the village earlier this morning she’d barely been able to believe her luck. Grabbing her binoculars, she’d raced upstairs, wrapped herself in her curtains and scouted the landscape for the source of the noise.

      Quite what she’d been expecting she wasn’t sure, but it certainly hadn’t been a sight as enticing as this.

      As the thrill returned, more delicious and more insistent than before, Laura paused mid-unwrap, nibbled on her lip and frowned. She’d always appreciated beauty. Had always admired structure. Which was why she’d become an architect. Now here was the finest animate example of both she’d seen in a long time and given the current sorry state of her love life it was unlikely that she’d ever get the chance again.

      Her heart thumping with illicit excitement, she edged closer to the wall, huddled deeper into the curtain, and fished her binoculars out from beneath the heavy fabric.

      How could another second or two hurt? After all, it wasn’t as if he could see her, was it?

      Matt swung the axe high above his head and froze.

      There it was again. The flash.

      Once. Twice. And then intermittently, like a sputtering light bulb. Like a beacon. Or like the sun glinting off a pair of binoculars.

       Hell.

      He thwacked the axe down on the log with such force that the blade scythed through the wood like a hot knife through butter and lodged in the stump.

      Something hard and tight settled in the pit of his stomach. Couldn’t they leave him alone for one measly second?

      Ignoring the stinging in his muscles and the sweat trickling down his back, he bent down, picked up the two halves of the log and hurled them onto the pile.

      One last weekend of peace. That was all he wanted. One lousy weekend of privacy before he embarked on a role he wasn’t sure he was entirely prepared for, and life as he knew it turned upside down.

      Matt grabbed the bottle lying in the grass, sloshed water over his head and flinched when the ice-cold liquid hit his burning skin.

      Hadn’t he provided the press with enough stories recently? They’d been hounding him for weeks, ever since it had been announced he was the long-lost heir to the newly restored Sassanian throne. They’d been camping outside his London house and tailing him wherever he went. Shoving tape recorders and cameras in his face at every opportunity and demanding responses to questions about his private life he had no intention of ever answering.

      By and large he’d played his part. Given interviews. Posed for photographs. And borne it with remarkable, if grim, tolerance. But by following him here, to the house in the Cots-wolds he’d almost forgotten he owned, they’d crossed the line.

      As irritation escalated into anger, Matt shoved his hands through his hair and pulled his T-shirt over his head.

      Enough was enough. No way was he just sitting back and letting some miserable low-life hack gawk at him all weekend. To hell with the consequences. He was going to go round, grab that pair of binoculars and wind the strap round their scrawny neck.

      Ah, that was a shame, thought Laura, biting her lip as she watched that magnificent chest disappear beneath a swathe of navy cotton.

      If she had control of the world, a man like that would be consigned to a life of naked-from-the-waist-up log-chopping. On permanent display. As a gift to the nation or something. And if she had control of the world, she’d rewind time and hit the pause button at the exact moment he’d taken that impromptu little shower.

      Despite the heat simmering in her veins, Laura shivered as the image slammed into her head. Utterly transfixed, she’d followed the rivulets of water trickling down his chest and hadn’t been able to stop herself trembling with longing. The powerful lenses of her binoculars had picked out every glistening drop clinging lovingly to his skin and her breath had evaporated all over again.

      Even now, when he was all covered up and striding across the lawn towards the house, as if the hounds of hell were snapping at his heels, she felt as if she were on fire. Tiny flames of heat licked along her veins. Her skin sizzled. Her stomach churned.

      He disappeared inside the house and Laura blinked and felt a sharp pang of loss.

      The unsettling shock of such an intense reaction snapped her back to her senses. She blinked. Rubbed her eyes and pulled herself together.

      Right, she decided, unwinding herself from the curtain and setting the binoculars on her dressing table. That was quite enough of that. She’d indulged for far longer than was wise and she had things to do.

      So no more thumping hearts and trembling limbs. No more tingling in inappropriate places and erratic breathing. And definitely no more fantasising.

      Tucking a notebook and pencil in the back pocket of her shorts and slinging her camera over her shoulder, Laura pulled her shoulders back and headed downstairs.

      If she was going to wangle an invitation inside what appeared to be a near perfect example of early seventeenth century architecture, she had to be charming, determined and above all, strong of knee.

      One of the first things Matt had planned to do once installed on the throne of Sassania was open up the press and grant the country’s journalists more access to information.

      Now, he thought grimly, eyes down as he strode along the path in the direction of the binocular-toting hack, he wasn’t so sure. Now СКАЧАТЬ