Rumors on the Red Carpet Page 11

  She blinked as she realised that while she had been so lost in thought they had already entered what must be the master bedroom—Lucien’s bedroom. A huge four-poster bed dominated the shadowed room, and those shadows made it impossible for her to tell whether the black, white and chrome décor Lucien seemed to prefer had spilt over into his bedroom. The carpet beneath her feet was certainly dark, as were the curtains and the satin cover and cushions piled on the bed, but the actual colours eluded her in the darkness...

  ‘Say now if you’re feeling...less than sure about this,’ Lucien prompted gruffly, his hands resting lightly on her waist as he turned her so that she was looking up at him.

  The one thing Thia was totally sure about was that she wanted Lucien. Her body ached with that longing; her breasts were swollen and tingling, nipples hard and aroused, and there was a heated dampness between her thighs. At the same time she so didn’t want to be a disappointment to him!

  It would have been better if he had just made love to her right there in the dining room. If he hadn’t given her time to think, to become so nervous.

  But this was Lucien Steele, a man of sophistication and control. He wasn’t the type of man to be so desperate for a woman he would rip her clothes off—well, apart from Thia’s blouse earlier. But that had been an accident rather than passion! Or the type of man to make wild and desperate love to her.

  Thia chewed worriedly on her bottom lip as she looked up into his hard and shadowed face, at those pale eyes glittering down at her intently in the darkness. ‘I am a little nervous,’ she admitted softly. ‘I’m not as experienced as you are, and there have been all those other women for you—’ She broke off as he placed silencing fingertips against her lips.

  ‘I’m clean medically, if that’s what’s bothering you.’

  ‘It isn’t,’ she assured him hastily, her cheeks blushing a fiery-red. ‘And I—I’m—er—clean too.’ How could she be anything else when she had never been to bed with anyone?

  He nodded abruptly. ‘And that’s the last time I want to talk about other people for either of us.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Cyn, neither of us is experienced when it comes to each other.’ He moved his hand to gently cup her cheek. ‘Half the fun will be in learning which caress or touch pleases the other,’ he added huskily.

  Fun? Going to bed with a man, making love with him, was fun? Thia had never thought of it in quite that light before, but she had no reason to doubt what Lucien said. He had always been totally, bluntly honest when he spoke to her.

  ‘You’re right.’ She shook off her feelings of nervousness and straightened determinedly. ‘Is it okay if I just use the bathroom?’

  ‘Of course.’ Lucien released her before stepping back. ‘Don’t be long,’ he added huskily as he opened the door to the adjoining bathroom and switched on the light for her.

  Thia leant back weakly against the door the moment it closed behind her and she was alone in the bathroom, her legs shaking so badly she could no longer stand without that support at her back.

  * * *

  Lucien stared at that closed bathroom door for several seconds after Cyn had closed it so firmly behind her, a frown darkening his brow as he considered her behaviour just now. She was more than just nervous. She seemed almost afraid. Just of him? Or of any man?

  Why? Had something happened to her in the past? Maybe even with Miller? Something to make her nervous about going to bed with another man? It seemed highly possible, when she’d admitted she had been thinking of the other man when he’d called her on it a few minutes ago. It made Lucien wish now that he had given in to the impulse he’d had this morning to punch the other man in the face as Miller threw Cyn’s belongings into her suitcase without so much as a thought or a question as to what was going to happen to her.

  Whatever the reason for Cyn’s nervousness, Lucien didn’t intend adding to it. He was glad now that he had shown such restraint a few minutes ago. He wanted to make slow and leisurely love to her, no matter the cost to his own self-control. Wanted to touch and pleasure Cyn until she could think of nothing else, no one else, but him and their lovemaking—

  Lovemaking? Was he actually falling in love with Cyn?

  It was an emotion he had always avoided in the past, and his choice of women—experienced and self-absorbed—was probably a reflection of that decision. Until now. Cyn was like no other woman he had ever known. And, yes, she was slipping—already had slipped?—beneath his defences.

  None of which he wanted to explore too deeply right now.

  Lucien crossed the bedroom to turn on the bedside lamp before turning back the bedcovers and quickly removing his clothes. His shaft bobbed achingly now that it was free of the confines of his denims.

  He lingered beside the bed, looking down at the black silk bedsheets as he imagined how right Cyn would look lying there, with that beautiful, pale, luminescent body spread out before him like a feast he wanted to gorge himself on. Just the thought of it was enough to cause his aching erection to throb eagerly, releasing pre-cum onto the bulbous tip before it spilt over and dripped slowly down his length.

  Sweet heaven!

  Lucien grasped his length before smoothing that liquid over it with the soft pad of his thumb, knowing he had never been this aroused before, this needy of any woman. Not in the way he now needed—desired—Cyn...

  * * *

  Thia studied herself critically in the mirror over the bathroom sink once she had taken her clothes off. Her face was pale, eyes fever-bright, her hair a silky black curtain across her bared shoulders. Her skin was smooth and unblemished, breasts firm and uptilting, tipped by engorged rosy-red nipples. Her waist was slender, hips flaring gently around the dark thatch of curls between her thighs, her legs long and slender.

  She was as ready as she was ever going to be to walk out of here and go to bed with Lucien!

  That courage didn’t include walking out stark naked, though, and quickly she pulled on the black silk robe she had found hanging behind the bathroom door, tying the belt of what was obviously Lucien’s own bathrobe tightly about the slenderness of her waist before taking a deep breath and opening the bathroom door, switching off the light...

  Only to come to an abrupt halt in that doorway as she realised that Lucien had turned on a single lamp on the bedside table, allowing her to see that the bedroom was indeed decorated in those black, white and chrome colours Lucien favoured. Lucien himself was already lying in the bed, that bronzed chest bare, only a black silk sheet draped over him and concealing his lower body.

  She had thought they would make love in the darkness—had imagined slipping almost anonymously beneath the bedcovers and then—

  ‘Take off the robe, Cyn.’

  She raised a startled gaze to Lucien and saw he was leaning up on his elbow, causing the muscles to bulge in his arm, as he looked across at her with those glittering silver eyes. The darkness of his overlong hair was now tousled and falling rakishly over his forehead, probably after he had removed his T-shirt.

  He was utterly beautiful in the same way that a deadly predator was beautiful—with all the power in that sleek and muscled body just waiting to be unleashed.

  ‘I want to look at you,’ he encouraged gruffly.

  Thia’s throat had gone so dry she could barely speak. ‘Doesn’t that work both ways?’

  ‘Sure.’ The intensity of his gaze never left hers as he slowly kicked down the black silk sheet.

  Thia’s breath caught in her throat and she could only stand and stare. At the width of his shoulders. At his muscled chest covered in that misting of dark hair. She could now see that it trailed down over his navel and grew thicker at the base of his arousal.

  Oh. Good. Grief.

  That was never going to fit inside her!

  Lucien was a tall man, several
inches over six feet and his bronze-skinned body was deeply muscled, so it was no surprise that his aroused shaft was in perfect proportion to the rest of him—at least nine, possibly ten inches long, and so thick and wide Thia doubted her fingers would meet if she were to clasp them around it as she so longed, ached to do. Just as she longed to caress, to touch and become familiar with every perfect inch of him!

  Even so, her wide gaze moved back unerringly to the heavy thrust of his arousal.

  Maybe it was like those ‘one size fits all’ pairs of socks or gloves you could buy? Hadn’t she read somewhere, in one of those sophisticated women’s magazines often left lying around in a dentist’s waiting room, that if a woman was prepared properly, with lots of foreplay, she was capable of stretching down there, accommodating any length or thickness—

  ‘Cyn?’

  Her startled gaze moved back up to Lucien’s face and, her cheeks flamed with colour as she met the heat in his eyes. He looked across at her expectantly, his hand held out to her invitingly, obviously waiting for her to unfasten the robe and remove it completely before joining him in the bed...

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  LUCIEN TAMPED DOWN the urgency he felt to get out of bed and go to Cyn and instead waited patiently, allowing Cyn to take her time, to adjust. Allowing her to be the one to come to him.

  They had all night—hours and hours for him to pleasure her into coming for him!

  Right now her face was so pale that her ivory skin appeared almost translucent. Blue veins showed at the delicacy of her temples and her cobalt-blue eyes were dark and shadowed as she continued to look across at him, cheeks pale, her lips slightly parted, as if she were having trouble breathing.

  ‘I’m starting to get a complex, Cyn,’ he murmured ruefully.

  Her startled gaze was quickly raised to his. ‘You are...? But you’re beautiful, Lucien,’ she murmured huskily.

  ‘So are you.’ Lucien slowly lifted his arm to hold out his hand to her again, holding his breath as the nervousness in Cyn’s gaze told him that she might turn tail and run if he made any sort of hasty move in her direction. Something he found surprisingly endearing rather than irritating.

  Cyn was so different from the women he had been with in the past. Beautiful women, certainly, but it was usually a pampered and sometimes enhanced beauty, after hours spent at beauty salons and spas or beneath a plastic surgeon’s knife. And all those women, without exception, had been confident of their perfectly toned bodies, of their sexual appeal.

  Cyn, on the other hand, obviously had no time or money to spend at beauty salons or spas. The sleekness of her body was just as nature had intended it, as was her breathtaking beauty. A beauty that was all the more appealing because Cyn seemed so completely unaware of it, of its effect on him and every other man she came into contact with. The women in New York society might have no interest in furthering the acquaintance of student/waitress Cynthia Hammond from England, but Lucien very much doubted the men felt the same way!

  And Lucien was the lucky man who had her all to himself—for tonight, at least...

  * * *

  Thia was frozen in place—couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, could only continue to stand in the bathroom doorway as she stared across at Lucien in mute appeal, inwardly cursing herself for her gauche behaviour but unable to do anything about it.

  ‘Please, Cyn!’ he said gruffly.

  It was the aching need that deepened Lucien’s voice to a growl which finally broke her out of that icy cage, causing Thia to take one step forward, and then another, until she finally stood beside the bed, allowing Lucien to reach out and enfold one of her trembling hands in his much warmer one.

  He lifted it slowly to his lips, his gaze still holding hers as those lips grazed the back of her knuckles, tongue rasping, tasting. ‘You are so very beautiful, Cyn.’

  The warmth of his breath brushed lightly against her over-sensitised skin. She swallowed. ‘I believe you’ll find the saying is Beautiful as sin...’

  ‘Nothing could be as beautiful as you.’ He gave a slow shake of his head.

  At this moment in time, Thia finished ruefully inside her head. Right here and right now she had Lucien’s complete attention. But tomorrow it would be different—

  Oh, to hell with tomorrow!

  For once in her carefully constructed life she was going to take not what was safe, or what she could afford, but what she wanted.

  And tonight she so very much wanted to be here with Lucien.

  She lowered her lashes and pulled her hand gently from his grasp, before moving to unfasten the belt of the robe, shrugging the black silk from her shoulders and hearing Lucien’s breath catching in his throat as she allowed the robe to slide down her arms to fall onto the carpet at her feet. She was completely naked in front of him as she finally raised her lashes to look at him.

  * * *

  ‘You’re exquisite,’ Lucien groaned, taking the time to admire each and every curve and dip and hollow of her naked body before moving smoothly up onto his knees at the edge of the bed, nullifying the difference in their heights, putting his face on a level with hers as his arms moved about the slenderness of her waist.

  Her hands moved up to clasp onto his shoulders as he pulled her in closer to him. Her skin felt so soft and she was so slender Lucien felt as if he could wrap his arms about her twice. His palms spread, fingers splayed across her shapely bottom, as he settled those slender curves into his much harder ones before touching his mouth lightly against hers.

  Lucien moved his lips across her creamy soft cheek to the softness beneath her ear, along the column of her throat. The rasp of his tongue tasted the shady hollows at the base of her throat as one of his hands curled about the gentle thrust of her breast, the soft pad of his thumb unerringly finding, stroking the aroused nipple.

  ‘Look at the two of us, Cyn,’ he groaned throatily. ‘See how beautiful we are together,’ he encouraged as she looked down to where his hand cupped her breast. He looked at that contrast himself. Ivory and bronze...

  Her skin looked so white against the natural bronze tone of Lucien’s. Ice and fire. And fire invariably melted ice, didn’t it?

  Thia’s inhibitions were melting, and her earlier apprehension along with it, as she twined her arms over those strong, muscled shoulders, her fingers becoming entangled in silky dark hair as she initiated a kiss between them this time—gentle at first, and then deeper, hungrier, as their passion flared out of control.

  Lucien continued to kiss her even as Thia felt his arms move beneath her knees and about her shoulders. He lifted her easily up and onto the bed, lying her down almost reverently onto the black silk sheets before stretching his long length beside her, his gaze holding hers before his head lowered, lashes falling down against those hard cheekbones, and his lips parted. He drew her nipple into his mouth, gently suckling, licking that aroused nub, even as his hands caressed the ribcage beneath her breasts, the slender curve of her waist, before moving lower still.

  Thia arched into his caresses as her nervousness faded completely and pleasure coursed through her—building, building, until she moved restlessly against him, needing more, wanting more. She was groaning low in her throat as she felt Lucien’s fingers against the silky curls between her thighs, seeking and finding the nubbin hidden there and moving lower still, to where the slickness of her juices had made her wet, so very wet, circling, moistening her swollen lips.

  His thumb pressed delicately against the nubbin above and still she wanted more, needed more. She felt as if she were poised on the edge of a precipice, one that burned. Flames were licking up and through her body, sensitising her to every touch of Lucien’s hands, to every sweep of his tongue across the swollen hardness of her nipples, as he divided his attentions between the two, first licking, then suckling. Each lick and suck seemed to increase the volca
nic pleasure rising between her thighs.

  ‘Please, Lucien!’ Her fingers tightened in his hair and she pulled his head up, forced him to look at her with eyes that glittered pure silver. His lips were swollen and moist. ‘Please...!’ she groaned beseechingly. ‘Lucien...’

  He moved so swiftly, so urgently, that Thia barely had time to realise he now lay between her parted thighs.

  ‘You are so beautiful here, Cyn,’ he murmured. His breath was a warm caress as the soft pads of his thumbs slicked her juices over those plump folds and the sensitive knot of flesh above. ‘Look at us, Cyn,’ he encouraged gruffly. ‘Move up onto your elbows and show me those pretty breasts.’

  Thia would have done anything Lucien asked of her at that moment. Her cheeks were flushed, eyes fever-bright, as she looked down at him, at his hair midnight-black against the paleness of her skin, bronzed back long and muscled, buttocks taut.

  His gaze held hers as he cupped his hands beneath her bottom and held her up and open to him. ‘I’m going to eat you up, Cyn,’ he promised, and his head lowered and his tongue swept, rasped against her slick folds.

  Over and over again he lapped her gently, and then harder, until Thia was no longer able to hold herself up on her elbows as the pleasure grew and grew inside her. Lucien’s fingers were digging almost painfully into the globes of her bottom as he thrust a tongue deep inside her slick channel, sending her over that volcanic edge as the pleasure surged and swelled, surged and swelled again and again, taking Thia into the magic of her first ever climax.

  It was the first of many. Lucien continued to pleasure her, taking her up to that plateau again and again, each time ensuring that he took her over the edge and into the maelstrom of pleasure on the other side, until Thia’s throat felt ragged and sore from the sobbing cries of each climax. Her body was becoming completely boneless as those releases came swifter and fiercer each time, and Lucien’s arms were looped beneath her thighs now, holding her wider to allow for the ministrations of his lips and tongue, increasing her pleasure each and every time she came.