LITMIR.BIZ

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      There was a song about a girl from South America who was tall and young and lovely. Lucia had used to hum it beneath her breath when she was a pre-teen, never dreaming she would turn into the other girl from Ipanema—the one who was short and a bit too fat, plain and olive-skinned. And stupid. She had to be stupid to have got herself into such a mess in London. How could she go home and tell them the truth now? It was all too humiliating, too shameful.

      So she would ride this storm out like any other, Lucia told herself firmly. She just hadn’t fathomed out how yet.

      She had been monumentally thrown at seeing Luke again, Lucia reasoned as she helped the barman clean the bar. She was making the climb back, though, however long it was taking, and she should cut herself some slack. Tonight the best thing she could do was to concentrate on cleaning up and earning a night’s pay.

      His attention on the blonde hadn’t so much slipped as fallen down a ravine—a ravine with Lucia at the bottom of it. To say he was shocked at seeing her working here would be putting it mildly. It was a world away from the last time he’d seen her, dancing so hotly he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her. How had she gone from that to working for a toad like Van Rickter? How was that supposed to further Lucia’s career? And where was she living? Who was she spending time with? What had happened to the girl who had blown him out of the water with her sass, her dancing, her brilliant smile, her world-class flirting, her breasts? Okay, so the breasts were still pretty amazing, but the rest …

       What the hell had happened to Lucia?

      The thought that Van Rickter might have something to do with it made the hackles rise on the back of his neck. His call to Nacho could wait. There were a few enquiries he wanted to make first.

      He glanced round impatiently as Vanessa waved an empty glass in his face. ‘The club’s closed,’ he pointed out sharply, knowing he was the one to blame for hanging on to watch Lucia.

      Making his excuses before the evening became even more uncomfortable than it had already been, he called a cab for the blonde and took Van Rickter into the back room to make a few things clear to him.

      ‘How long has that girl called Lucia worked here?’

      ‘Lucia?’ Van Rickter seemed genuinely confused. ‘There’s no one called Lucia working here,’ he protested, with a shifty, guilty look.

      ‘The dark-haired girl with the attitude and—’

      ‘Oh, you mean Anita,’ Van Rickter said on a wave of relief. ‘At least that’s what she calls herself here,’ he said, quickly covering himself in case Lucia had done something wrong. ‘Don’t tell me she’s an illegal?’ Van exclaimed, wiping his brow as if hiring vulnerable people for cash and far less than the minimum wage had never occurred to him.

      ‘I mean Anita,’ Luke agreed offhandedly. ‘I must have misheard her name,’ He might be all out of patience with Lucia, but this was private business. He wasn’t going to give Van Rickter anything that he could hurt Lucia with, or make money out of.

      ‘I could arrange a meeting, if you like,’ Van Rickter said, in a way that made Luke’s pupils shrink to arrowheads. ‘All the girls owe me …’

      I bet they do, Luke thought with distaste.

      ‘She has a second job at the local guest house,’ Van Rickter revealed, toadying up to him. ‘The Sundowner? You might have heard of it. Maybe the owner there can tell you more.’

      Luke hid his rush of triumph. Lucia wouldn’t be using the alias Anita at the guest house, where the owner knew her, so Margaret must be in on Lucia’s life plan—whatever that might be. But there was something else worrying him. If he hadn’t known better he would have said Lucia had flinched from him, almost as if she had some communicable disease. That wasn’t the girl he knew—the girl who would happily take any man down with her repartee. So what the hell was going on?

      In spite of his distaste at being forced to discuss Lucia with a man like Van Rickter, he was amused at the thought of Lucia choosing the name of a Puerto Rican firecracker in a musical. It made him think back to her brothers, yelling at her to turn the caterwauling down when they had wanted heavy metal to rule the house. He could imagine Lucia had dreamed of being Anita, a woman free to express herself without four brothers drowning her out—though in his opinion Lucia had far more going for her than a fantasy figure.

      Kill those thoughts. Lucia was trouble. Whatever mess she had got herself into this time, it wasn’t up to him to sort it out. He’d tell Nacho he’d found her and then his job was done.

      Lucia had a second job? Luke mused, turning to stare at the entrance to the club. No wonder she looked exhausted. Two lousy jobs in the wilds of Cornwall didn’t come close to equalling one good job in the heart of London. So what had happened to the management position at the top London hotel Nacho had been telling him about? He consoled himself with the thought that whatever she was hiding he would find out. Lucia was living at the Sundowner, and Margaret, the owner, was a big part of his plan to revive the area.

       ‘Luke …’

      She was thrashing about in bed in that half-world between sleeping and waking where anything was possible—even a man making love to her. But this wasn’t any man.

      Shifting restlessly on what passed for her pillow, she pulled the scratchy blanket round her shoulders and slipped deeper into the world of dreams, where her body was still capable of quivering with awareness, with warmth and with arousal—where Luke’s brooding amber gaze needed no explanation and the care in his big, strong hands was all the reassurance she needed.

      Seeing Luke again tonight had been bound to lead to this, Lucia’s drifting mind soothed. Her eyes were open and yet they were closed. She was sleeping, surely? The air was misty with a golden glow. Candles were flickering. Seductive scents tickled her nostrils. Luke was stripped to the waist and leaning over her. He was as magnificent as ever. His golden torso, so powerful and so shielding, made her feel small, made her feel safe, made her feel that anything was possible—even Luke looking at her with desire in his eyes …

      Thrashing her head on the pillow, she knew this was wrong. Luke was taboo. She should not be lying here naked with him. Luke was older, established, confident, experienced. Luke was her brothers’ friend—upright and principled.

      Her body didn’t care about any of that and responded urgently. Reaching out, she mapped the wealth of muscle from his shoulders to his iron-hard belly, glorying in his strength. And when Luke quivered beneath her touch she revelled in her power over him. But Luke refused to accept her dominance and, swinging her beneath him, brushed his fingertips across her breasts, watching without pity as she gasped for air and arced towards him, seeking more contact.

      What was she doing? Luke was built on a heroic scale, and when he discovered the truth about her he would throw her off in disgust.

      Luke knew how much she wanted him. Holding her gaze, he caressed her, and she groaned as pleasure spiralled through her body. Reaching up, she laid her palm against his stubble-roughened cheek. Luke answered by teasing her lips apart and taking her mouth in a scorching reminder of what else he’d like to do to her.

      ‘I have no other duty but to please you,’ he said.

      Quite right too, she thought, though the longing to pleasure Luke was overcoming her, and to be pleasured by him, to forget her fear. But just as she reached for him he slowed the pace. Turning away, he poured champagne, then reached for some fruit in the bowl by the bed. He dipped a ripe berry in melted chocolate before holding it to her lips. She sat forward. He took it away. He moved to kiss her. She moved away. Luke’s eyes held so much understanding, and when his lips claimed hers he tasted of strawberries and chocolate. Gaining in confidence, she rubbed her naked breasts against his chest and felt her nipples tighten. Drawing deeply on his warm male scent, she placed her hands flat against Luke’s hard, hot torso and drew him down.

      ‘Tell me what you want, Lucia.’

      ‘Kiss

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