Caught in His Gilded World

Gigi stroked her fingers over the old wound, viscerally aware that she was touching his bare flesh and that he felt hot and hard and male. But on a more conscious level she was horrified by the kind of life he’d led to cause these injuries. The raised skin she had under her fingertips was testimony to the poor medical care he’d received. Bullets? Knives?

‘How did you get these?’

‘National Service. Hunting.’

He was looking down at her now with a faint smile, the nature of which would have made a more virtuous girl uneasy. Although Gigi guessed she was that virtuous girl.

‘I’ve got more, but that would involve removing more clothing than you’re probably comfortable with.’

Gigi had opened her mouth to tell him she felt pretty comfortable with clothing being removed when she caught the glint in his eyes.

Her breath caught.

He wanted her.

* * *

Before she could properly react his arm was going around her, his hand was at the back of her head, delving gently into her hair, and she only had a moment to look into his eyes before he lowered his mouth to hers.

He just took that kiss.

The confidence of his move left her with nowhere to go, and Gigi found herself going under with the sensuous slide of his mouth over hers. She parted her lips, the masculine taste of him invading every pore of her being. Her lashes drifted down. He didn’t hurry it—he enjoyed it.

She clutched at him, giving way to his superior technique. No one had ever kissed her like this before. It was ravishing, and she never wanted him to stop.

But he did.

He released her after just one kiss, leaving her stunned and slightly panting.

‘This is bad idea,’ he said thickly in broken English, his fingers still sifting the soft hair at the nape of her neck, still staring at her mouth.

She didn’t want it to be a bad idea—she didn’t want him to stop. She ached.

She really wanted another kiss.

She was going to get one.

Gigi slapped her hand to his chest and spread her fingers like a starfish, using his chest hair to tug him back in the direction she wanted him.

‘I don’t think so,’ she said, looking determinedly into his dark eyes.

Something clean and wild pierced through the guard she had become used to seeing in his eyes, as if everything else had been a cover for what lived inside him and she’d just woken it up.

Gigi had a flashback to that moment at the cabaret when he’d turned around and she’d imagined he was going to devour her.

She just hadn’t thought it would be literally.

A primitive thrill unlike any she’d ever known zinged along her spine to her brain, knocking out all the realities of their situation.

The paparazzi...who he was...who she was...the cabaret. Gone.

They were just a man and a woman.

Their mouths met, his fused hungrily to hers once more, and the scrape of his tongue was tasting her, his hand holding the back of her head the better to angle the kiss. It wasn’t polite or gentle or coaxing. It was rough and raw and it sparked spot fires in her body Gigi couldn’t reach to put out.

Instinctively she wrapped her arms around his neck and there was a clatter as the first aid gear went flying. She was caught by her legs and she clamped them around his lean, hard waist.

He swung her off the vanity, big hands cupping her behind, and with their mouths still fused he strode from the bathroom, carrying her with him.

It was all happening so fast, and Gigi wasn’t sure why but she just knew that if they slowed down one of them would stop this.

He was stripping back her jacket and she was helping him, using her steely thigh muscles like grips to hold onto him. She wasn’t sure what she really wanted here, but he’d freed something in her that had been caught, that she’d never known until now, and she felt a little wild with it.

Her breasts sang with sensation, squashed up against his chest as she fought free of her jacket.

Under the press of her pelvis he was formidably aroused, and it was a shot to her ego that she could do this to him. Then she was free to hold him tightly to her and kiss him back, a little drunk on the taste, aware that this was so out of character nobody who knew her would recognise her.

His knees hit the side of the bed and he lowered her on to her back in an economical move that spoke of much practice.

But not practice with L’Oiseau Bleu showgirls, and that was what counted.

He was pushing up her T-shirt, cupping her breasts, lifting himself so he could see her.

Her common sense was shouting. This is not going to fix the cabaret. This is only going to get you into trouble.