Page 33 of Royally Promoted

But she was seeing him now, wasn’t she?

‘Well, of course I’m lost for words.’ Lucy bristled with vigour. ‘This isn’t a conversation I was expecting!’

‘We could talk about work, if you’d rather?’ he suggested unevenly and waited for her to take the bait, to come to him, to touch like he wanted her to touch.

‘It would be a lot safer!’

‘Do you want safe? Truthfully? Because, if you do, then safe is what you’ll get.’

‘I...’

‘This is a time for honesty,’ Malik said huskily. ‘We’re both adults. We’re both free agents at this point in time. So, do you want...safe?’

At this point in time...

‘No.’

‘I like where this is going...’

Lucy edged towards him and, when their bodies touched, she hissed a long sigh and shuddered.

She lowered her lashes and the thrill of the unknown and the highly anticipated rushed through her with tidal wave ferocity. She could have turned away, held him at arm’s length while she swooned in a suitably helplessly feminine fashion, but what would be the point?

This was their sweet spot and it was never going to happen again if she turned her back on it—and why shouldn’t she take charge of her own emotions, her own responses? She’d been a helpless fool with Colin, had let romantic thoughts of love turn her misty-eyed and vulnerable, but she knew the score here and, really, hadn’t her background geared her to go after what she wanted? She wanted this.

She could lose herself in a labyrinth of ‘shouldn’t’s... She could think about risk and consequences. She could reduce everything to a balancing act, weighing up the pros and cons coolly and rationally, but this burning desire she felt wasn’t cool and it wasn’t rational. It was something overwhelming that needed to be sated and, whatever thought of consequences tried to push through her haze of longing, it didn’t stand a chance against the thing inside her, that was telling her that to walk away from this would be a regret she would nurse for ever.

She curled her fingers into his shirt and tugged him towards her, tilted her face to his and unconsciously parted her lips.

‘Not here,’ Malik said gruffly.

‘Malik...’

‘Second thoughts?’

‘No. Even though it’s a terrible idea.’ She laughed softly under her breath. ‘Although terrible ideas can be fun now and again, I guess. Have you ever had a terrible idea and gone through with it?’

‘Tell me you’re not about to have a long, meaningful conversation now when I can think of a thousand better things to do that don’t involve talking...’

His low, hungry groan was an invitation she couldn’t resist but she still yelped and laughed when he stood up, swinging her up with him in one fluid movement and almost knocking over the table with the liqueur glasses in the process.

He carried her swiftly upstairs as though she weighed nothing, which was just excellent for her self-confidence. His dark eyes flicking down to her, glowing with desire, also did the trick with this gloriously handsome guy, she the object of his desire.

And he the object of desire for every red-blooded woman under the age of ninety on the planet, she thought as heat poured through her.

He occupied a magnificent wing of the palace that was kitted out for the guy who didn’t like being too far away from work. She was dimly aware of a sitting area that included a table of boardroom size at one end and a stark arrangement of leather and chrome, so different from the furnishings everywhere else.

When he nudged open the door to one of the bedrooms, his bedroom, the breath caught in her throat and she stared around her, absorbing everything as he gently lowered her onto a bed the size of an Olympic swimming pool.

She saw dark colours...deep burgundies, rich velvets, glass, metal and silks....

Then, there was him.

She died and went to heaven as she watched him undress very slowly in the shadowy darkness. He stripped off the shirt first and she breathed in deeply at the sight of his muscular torso, the width of his chest, the dark hair shadowing it. She almost couldn’t look as he stepped out of his trousers and then hooked his fingers under the waistband of his dark boxers.

‘Enjoying the view?’ Malik drawled with amusement.

‘Very much so.’ Her voice was a dry croak. She was sprawled on the bed, watching as he neared her, and then, when he was close enough, he eased off the boxers and she stopped breathing completely. Her eyelids fluttered and she propped herself up on unsteady elbows to shamelessly stare at his impressive, throbbing erection.

---