Darci pondered as she took her own glass of champagne from Luc. ‘I really don’t think I can do this, Luc,’ she muttered, feeling distinctly uncomfortable in her strappy black dress, with its low neckline and three-inches-above-the-knee length, when Angel Gambrelli looked so beautiful in her elegant designer label red dress.
Usually cool and calm under pressure, Darci knew that her normal self-confidence had taken a distinct knock when the other couple had arrived minutes ago, looking so suavely sophisticated.
It didn’t help that she and Luc had had a blazing row earlier, when Darci had discovered the suite only had one bedroom!
The fact that Luc had shrugged off her anger with the comment that their relationship would hardly look convincing to his family if they occupied separate bedrooms hadn’t appeased her fury in the slightest. Neither had his assurances that he had every intention of sleeping on the couch in the sitting-room.
How was she supposed to sleep tonight knowing that Luc was only feet away on the couch in the adjoining room?
Although the fact that this was the first time they had even spoken to each other since they’d had the row would probably ensure that Darci continued to say little, as Luc had requested earlier; it was the smile that might prove a little more difficult to achieve!
Luc took a much-needed sip of his champagne. Much needed because his usually unshakable self-control had taken a distinct knock the moment Darci had appeared in the sitting-room, shortly before Wolf and Angel arrived, wearing a black dress that revealed more than it covered.
Dear God, he reflected now. She looked so sexy he wanted to rip the dress away and feast himself on the body that he was pretty sure was virtually naked beneath the clinging black material!
The blackness of his mood wasn’t improved by the fact that one glance at Wolf’s amused expression told him that his brother knew exactly what line his thoughts had taken.
What every red-blooded man at the party tonight would also be thinking every time he so much as looked at Darci. And Luc had no doubt that plenty of them—that all of his male relatives—would be looking!
‘Maybe you should have worn something a little less—revealing. You might feel more comfortable,’ he observed sardonically. And instantly felt like a complete bastard as he saw the hurt in Darci’s expressive green eyes when she looked up at him reproachfully. ‘You look beautiful,’ he assured her, with soft impatience at the fact that he wanted to take off his evening jacket and wrap it concealingly around the bareness of Darci’s shoulders, the full swell of her breasts revealed above the low neckline of the dress that Luc was certain only just covered the tempting rosy tips of her succulent nipples. God, he could almost taste—
‘Don’t try and be nice to me, Luc—I know I look distinctly underdressed!’ Darci came back forcefully, her fingers gripping her champagne glass so tightly that her knuckles showed white as she took another reviving sip of the wine. ‘Goodness knows what Wolf and Angel will think of me,’ she hissed angrily.
Luc could take a pretty shrewd guess at what his brother thought of Darci, having seen the unmistakable male admiration in Wolf’s impersonal gaze as the two of them were introduced. And Angel, absolutely secure in her husband’s love, obviously thought her beautiful, too.
‘They like you,’ Luc assured her honestly. ‘Just stop fussing with it,’ he advised her brusquely, as Darci attempted to pull the low neckline of the dress higher, only succeeding in giving him a tantalising glimpse of her rosy nipples instead. ‘Don’t you have a wrap or something you could wear?’ he added harshly, annoyed at the stirring of his own arousal. The last thing he wanted was to go downstairs and present himself to his mother with his erection visibly throbbing!
‘Yes, I do have a wrap. But it would look rather silly if I wear it when we’re remaining in the hotel,’ Darci came back reasoningly.
‘I’ll tell everyone you have a cold,’ Luc retorted softly.
‘My hero!’ she came back witheringly.
‘I’ll be a lot more than that if you don’t stop fidgeting and cover yourself up,’ he warned darkly.