Page 9 of Seducing Cinderella

“That’s okay,” he said crossing his arms. “Bra and panties’ll work too.”

Her jaw dropped. Was he serious? She studied the hard glint in his hazel eyes.Shit. “I’ll get my suit,” she mumbled on her way to the large dresser along the wall.

“Excellent idea. I’ll wait out in the hall while you change. But Luce…” She paused mid-rummage through her top drawer and looked over her shoulder at him. “If you’re longer than three minutes, I’m going to assume you’ve chickened out, and I’m coming in.”

She narrowed her eyes behind her glasses. “Do you always threaten people until they bend to your every whim?”

“Of course not. I’ve never had to resort to threats until you,” he said with a cover model smile. “Ticktock.”

She grabbed a handful of rolled-up socks from the drawer and threw them at his head. Unfortunately he did his bob-and-weave thing—holding his injured shoulder andlaughing—and managed to avoid all three cotton missiles just before he closed the door behind him.

Chapter Four

Lucie triedto be annoyed with her new roommate but found herself grinning like an idiot instead. “Pompous ass.” Same old Reid. She shook her head and returned to her search for the elusive bathing suit. “Aha! Found you, you little stinker.” Holding up the suit Vanessa had made her buy for their vacation, Lucie winced.Wasn’t there more to it than this?

She did love the blue-gray color with the aqua swirly patterns, but she wished the sides weren’t so high cut. They hitched up past her hip bones. Vanessa claimed it emphasized her waist more, and the plunging neckline supposedly created the illusion of a bigger bust. She’d nodded dutifully to her best friend’s fashion advice but had seriously doubted something could be made from nothing. Their vacation had been canceled at the last minute when one of Vanessa’s cases went to court suddenly, so thankfully she’d never had to wear the suit.

She sighed and changed. At least it was a one-piece, which is more than she could say for anything Vanessa wore in the vicinity of a pool or beach. A minute later she stood before her tall mirror, closed her eyes, and tried to ignore the blood rushing in her ears as she called out for Reid.

The door opened with a quietsnick, but he didn’t make a sound as he moved across the floor. The utter silence made her mouth dry and her fingers twitch by her side. Where was he? Was he trying not to laugh? Oh God, why on earth did she let him talk her into this?

Suddenly she felt his body heat radiating into her back. He was close. Very close. His breath feathered the drying strands tucked around her ear, and when he spoke, the vibrations from his voice rippled along her neck. “Open your eyes, sweetheart.”

With deliberate slowness, Lucie fluttered her lids open until she was once again staring at the mirror image of herself with Reid standing behind her. His frame made her look slight in comparison. She knew all of his measurements from watching his fights. Six foot three, two hundred and five pounds, a little more when he didn’t need to cut weight for a fight, with a seventy-six inch reach. The tops of her shoulders barely came up to his armpits, and if she let her head fall back, it would rest comfortably in the crook of his neck.

“Now,” he said, bringing her out of her dreamy observations. “Tell me what you see.”

“Strong shoulders. Solid chest. Forearms roped in muscle with just the right amount of veins to make them super sexy…”

He grinned at her in the mirror and his voice became a low rumble that shot straight to her nipples. “You think my forearms are sexy, Lu?”

“Mmm-hmmm.” Why did it look like she had a dopey grin on her face? Surely that wasn’t what she really looked like.

“Thank you. I can honestly say no one has ever said that to me before.”

Well that was a damn shame. She was about to tell him so when he rudely interrupted her train of thought. “I meant, tell me what you see of yourself.”

“Oh.” Studying her reflection all she saw was a woman in a girl’s body trying like hell to pull off a look far beyond the realm of possibilities. “Um. I see…” What did he expect her to say? “This is stupid, Reid. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

As she turned to walk away, he gripped her hips and held her in place. “I’ll tell you what I see. I see a beautiful woman who hides behind insecurities that have no business living in her head.” She lowered her head to gaze at the floor, but strong fingers guided her chin back up. “I see a body with flawless olive skin and subtle curves that tempt a man to close his eyes as he traces each of them like a sculptor traces his subject.”

“You do?”

“Absolutely.” Reid closed his eyes and placed his hands on her outer thighs, then slid them up in a painfully slow motion. The calluses on his palms softly abraded her skin, infusing each tiny nerve with a jolt of energy. “Before a sculptor can duplicate the elegance of his subject, he has to memorize her with the power of touch, instead of depending on the laziness of sight.”

Lucie’s lips parted as her breathing came faster and her heart pounded twice as fast. Maybe more. Reid’s hands continued their exploration, spanning her waist and traveling up her sides with a firm touch that spoke of a man in control. A man who knew what he wanted, and took it without remorse.

“As his hands move over every dip, every curve, every valley…the woman’s body is formed in his mind, embedded in his muscle memory, so he can recreate her even if he were to go blind.”

She thought the barrier of her suit was a reprieve from the sensory overload of the skin-on-skin contact…but then his hands slid around to her belly and any sense of relief she’d had was shot straight to hell. Hands as large as his, when placed down the center of her body, easily spanned her entire torso.

She wasn’t sure if it was the wine or the fact that Reid Andrews, superhot friend of her brother and the guy she’d crushed on as a teenager, was touching her so intimately that was causing the surreal, out-of-body experience. From a distance she watched as the pinky on his left hand grazed the top of her mound, just high enough to be considered innocent, but low enough to cause a clenching in her womb that had her squeezing her thighs together and biting her lip to prevent the moans that wanted to be heard. And if that wasn’t enough, his right thumb was caressing a path between her breasts.

Burying his face in her hair, he inhaled deeply and let out a mix between a moan and a growl, which was quite possibly the most erotic sound she’d ever heard. “Goddamn you smell good.”

Her knees trembled. The strength to stand was waning. A thick fog had blown through her mind, making clear thoughts impossible. Letting go of the last thread she had on her inhibitions, she let her head fall back and to the side as his hot breath fanned over the shell of her ear.

His hands began to clench, his fingers digging into the softness of her body. She spoke his name on a moan…

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