LITMIR.BIZ

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raised a hand, and then forgot why as it found the rock-hard planes of his chest, the hint of stubble on his lean jaw, each new sensation igniting a flood of desire, each stronger and more thrilling than the last.

      She … forgot. Where they were. Why she was angry with him. Why she should not allow him to angle his mouth over hers with such skill and talent, nor rake a hand into her hair to anchor her head in place as he tasted her again and again and again. Everything that was not Lucas was like smoke, drifting away, signifying nothing. As if only he existed.

      Without lifting his mouth from hers, without giving her even a moment to breathe, to collect herself, Lucas shifted on the small settee, his powerful arms sweeping Grace up and over him, settling her sideways across his lap. He murmured something she could not understand, could hardly hear over the pounding of her heart and the wild rush in her ears, and then he claimed her mouth once more.

      It was too much. He was everywhere. Hard beneath her thighs, hard against her body, and that talented, wicked mouth of his that took and took, until she could not think at all. She could only feel the heat. The fire. The slick fit and exquisite taste of him, expensive liquor mixed with that part that was purely him. Pure Lucas. Sinful and delicious and capable of making her head spin around and around while the very core of her pulsed with need.

      One of his hands remained laced in her hair, and on some dim level she was aware that he was destroying her careful twist. The pins scattered at his impatient touch and the heavy, wild curtain of her blond waves cascaded down around them, shielding them, cocooning them. She could not find it in her to care. His other hand stroked a lazy path from her cheek to her neck, down the stretch of her bare arm to settle at her hip, his big hand holding her fast on one side with his arousal stark and unmistakable on the other.

      Grace’s hands went to his strong, sculpted shoulders and were lost, unable to keep from testing the stark physical power he held leashed there—the fine, chiseled lines of his lean and muscular form. Once again, her hand crept to his cheek as if she could hold him, understand him, make sense of him that way. As if she could keep him there, kissing her as if he was starved for her, kissing him back as if she had never been kissed before, as if he had switched a light on inside of her and she could only glow. And glow.

      She had never felt this fine desperation, this coiling, insistent need. This fire. She was lost in him. Undone by him.

      And still he made love to her mouth as if he could do so forever, as if he had all the time in the world, as if nothing existed but the two of them.

      At first, the flash of light made no sense to her, though she pulled back and blinked, dazed, her breath coming in pants and her eyes too glazed to see. But then it came again, and again, and she realized with dawning alarm that it was not lightning. It was no storm. It was a camera. A flashbulb.

      “Ignore them,” Lucas muttered, his hands still urgent on her.

      Reality came crashing back, slamming into Grace with the force of a punch to her gut. Ice and horror washed through her, and for a long moment she was frozen, incapable of movement, like a stone as she stared down at Lucas.

      At that wicked mouth of his, that some treacherous part of her still longed for. At his beautiful, fallen-angel face, that she now knew the feel of beneath her hands. At his bold, unapologetic green gaze, that tore into her like knives, leaving her jagged and despairing.

      She could not speak. Words flashed across her mind, harsh and accusing, desperate and pleading, and none of them came close to addressing how she felt. What it meant to be the latest in his endless parade of interchangeable females. Who she had just discovered she was, despite everything, despite all her years of sacrifice and hard work, ambition and denial.

      All it took, apparently, was a red dress and the world’s most shameless playboy, and she transformed into her own worst nightmare.

      She lurched to her feet, putting air and space between their too-heated bodies, letting her hair swirl around her—hoping it covered her face and concealed her identity from the cameras. She wished desperately she did not have to live through the next awkward, terrible moments, that instead she could simply disappear in a puff of smoke and avoid the consequences of her thoughtless actions altogether. But when had she ever gotten what she’d wished for?

      Lucas reached out and snagged her small wrist in his big, elegant hand before she could turn away, forcing her to look down at him, sprawled there on the brushed suede settee like some kind of dissolute god. She wanted to scream, to curse. To throw things at him. To ruin that handsome face, as if that could change how easily she’d fallen for him, how quickly she’d melted all over him.

      She bit back what felt like a sob—but could not be. She would not allow it. Not here. Not now. Not where too many people, too many cameras—and Lucas—could see.

      “Don’t touch me,” she managed to grit out, past the lump in her throat and the tears that threatened to further disarm and expose her. “Haven’t you done enough for one night?”

      “Grace,” he began, his voice low, but she could not listen to him. He was all lies and seduction, and she had to go before she lost herself completely. She had to think. How could she repair the damage? It was as if a bomb really had gone off, and she was the wreckage, all splintered and shredded and strewn haphazardly about. There was nothing left of the Grace she had been before he’d kissed her like that.

      And she would die before she let him see it.

      She jerked her wrist from his grasp, all too aware, from the measuring gleam in his green eyes, that he allowed it. And then she spun around on her heel, ignoring his muttered curse, and threw herself into the crowd. She shoved her way past the avid gazes of the looming cameramen and bolted for the elevator that would whisk her away from this mess.

      If only she could run from herself as easily.

      She heard her mother’s voice echo in her head, weathered from too many cigarettes and too many bad choices. “Someday you’ll ruin yourself on some no-account man just like the rest of us. You’ll see. Then maybe you won’t be so high and mighty.”

      Grace felt a rolling swell of a multitude of things—none of them high and mighty. Maybe no one could escape her destiny. Maybe she’d been a fool to try so hard, for so long.

      It was not until she’d made it down into the lobby of the exclusive luxury hotel that she realized she’d left her bag behind on the top level—behind the tight wall of high-level security that only Lucas’s famous face had managed to breach. She sighed, a noise that was dangerously close to a sob.

      Her keys. Her wallet. Her PDA. How could she leave without them? Where could she go?

      She came to a stop in the middle of the marble floor, her legs feeling unsteady beneath her, her breath still too quick and her heart still so loud she was afraid it echoed in the hushed space.

      “Grace.”

      Of course he had followed her. He was the reigning champion of this particular game, and she had just forfeited. All over him and on film.

      It was not possible to hate herself more than she did at that moment, but Grace tried. Oh, how she tried.

      She did not turn around, but still, she knew when he drew close. Her body reacted as if his proximity was a caress. She felt an inevitable, breathless kind of heat slide from the nape of her neck to her breasts, then down between her legs where it coiled tight and bloomed into a fire. She found she was biting her lower lip and forced herself to stop. Just as she forced herself to raise her head and meet his penetrating yet oddly shuttered gaze when he stepped around to her front to face her.

      For a moment, the world fell away. The glittering, ornate lobby, with its hint of tasteful music from above and the acrobatic flower displays in large ceramic vases, faded into a gray nothingness, and there was only Lucas. Only the things she told herself she did not, could not, see in him, because he was only surface no matter how he made her ache. Only the deep, abiding desire for him that rolled inside of her, the fire banked and smoldering, but too-easily kindled by the way he tilted his head to one side as he considered

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