telling him. What she wanted. All she knew was she didn’t want him to go.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ Luke said after a moment and Aurelie turned to face him.
‘Why not?’
He smiled wryly, but she saw how dark and shadowed his eyes looked. ‘Because we’re going to have a business relationship and I don’t want to complicate things.’
She lifted her eyebrows, tried for insouciance. ‘Why does it have to be complicated?’
‘What are you asking me, Aurelie?’
She liked the way he said her name. She’d always hated it, a ridiculous name given to her by an even more ridiculous mother, but when he said it she felt different. She felt more like herself—or at least the person she thought she could be, if given a chance. ‘What do you want me to be asking you?’
He laughed softly. ‘Never a straight answer.’
‘I’d hate to bore you.’
‘I don’t think you could ever bore me.’ He was staring straight at her, and she could see the heat in his eyes. Felt it in herself, a flaring deep within, which was sudden and surprising because desire for a man was something she hadn’t felt in a long time, if ever. Yet she felt it now, for this man. This wasn’t about power or control or the barter that sex had always been to her. She simply wanted him, wanted to be with him.
‘Well?’ she asked, her voice no more than a breath.
Luke didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Aurelie saw both the doubt and desire in his eyes, and she took a step towards him so she was standing between his splayed thighs. With her fingertips she smoothed the crease that had appeared in his forehead. ‘You think too much.’
His mouth curved wryly. ‘I think I’m thinking with the wrong organ at the moment.’
She laughed softly. ‘What’s wrong with thinking with that organ on occasion?’ She let her fingertips drift from his forehead to his cheek, felt the bristle of stubble on his jaw. She liked touching him. How strange. How nice.
Luke closed his eyes. ‘I really don’t think this is a good idea.’
‘That’s your brain talking now.’
‘Yes—’
She let her thumb rest on his lips. They were soft and full and yet incredibly masculine. With his eyes closed she had the freedom to study his face, admire the strong lines of his jaw and nose, the sooty sweep of his lashes. Long lashes and full lips on such a virile man. Amazing.
‘Shh,’ she said softly, and then slowly, deliberately, she slid her finger into his mouth. His lips parted, and she felt the wet warmth of his tongue before he bit softly on the pad of her finger. Lust jolted like an electric pulse low in her belly, shocking her. Thrilling her. Luke opened his eyes; they blazed with heat and need. He sucked gently on her finger and she let out a shuddery little gasp.
Then he drew back, his eyes narrowing once more. ‘Why are you doing this?’
She smiled. ‘Why not?’
‘I don’t want you throwing this in my face, telling me I’m just like every other man you’ve met.’
‘I won’t.’ She knew he wasn’t. He was different, just like he’d said he was. And she wanted him to stay. She needed him to stay. ‘You really do think too much,’ she murmured. She stepped closer, hooked one leg around his. She hooked her other leg around so she was straddling him. Then she lowered herself, legs locked around his, onto his lap. She could feel his arousal pressing against her and she shifted closer, settling herself against him.
‘That’s a rather graceful move,’ Luke said, the words coming out on a half-groan.
‘All that dancing onstage has made me very flexible.’
‘Aurelie …’
‘I like how you say my name.’
Luke slid his hands down her back, anchored onto her hips, holding her there. ‘This really isn’t a good idea,’ he muttered, and Aurelie pressed against him.
‘Define good,’ she said, and as he drew her even closer she knew she had him. She’d won, and she felt a surge of both triumph and desire. Yet amidst that welter of emotion she felt a little needle of disappointment, of hurt. Men really were all the same.
He was being seduced. Luke had realised this at least fifteen minutes ago, when Aurelie had first got that knowing glint in her eyes, and even though just about everything in him was telling him this was a bad idea, his body was saying something else entirely. His body was shouting, Hell, yes.
He felt as if he were two men, one who stood about five feet behind him, coldly rational, pointing out that he was doing exactly what Aurelie had accused him of doing. Coming here with a sexual agenda, with a plan to get her into bed—
Except she was the one trying to get him into bed.
And he wanted to go there.
Still, that cold voice pointed out, sleeping with Aurelie was a huge mistake, one that would cause countless complications for their proposed business trip to Asia, not to mention his personal life. His sanity.
The other man, the one curving his hands around her hips, was insisting that he wasn’t sleeping with Aurelie, he was sleeping with Aurelie Schmidt. The woman who had sung that beautiful, heartbreaking song, who hid her heart in her eyes, whom he’d recognised from the first moment she’d looked up at him.
Yet maybe that was even worse. That woman was confusing, vulnerable, and far more desirable than any persona she put on. And whether it was the pop star or the hidden woman underneath on his lap, he knew it was still a hell of a mistake.
And one he had decided to make. Luke slid his hands up her back to cradle her face, his fingers threading through the softness of her hair. And then he kissed her, his lips brushing once, twice over hers before he let himself go deep and the coldly rational part of himself telling him to stop went silent.
Somehow they got upstairs. It was hazy in his mind, fogged as it was with lust, but Luke remembered stumbling on a creaky stair, opening a door. There was a bed, wide and rumpled. And there was Aurelie, standing in front of it, a faint smile on her face. Luke slid her sweater over her head, unbuttoned her jeans. She wriggled out of them and lay on the bed in just her bra and underwear, waiting, ready.
Except her damn chin was quivering.
Luke hesitated, the roar of his heated blood and his own aching need almost, almost winning out. ‘Aurelie—’
He saw uncertainty flicker in her eyes, shadows on water, and then she reached up to grab him by the lapels of his suit; he was still completely dressed.
‘It’s too late for second thoughts,’ she said, and as she kissed him, a hungry, open-mouthed kiss, he had to agree that it just might be.
He kissed her back, desire for her surging over him in a tidal wave, drowning out anything but that all-consuming need, and he felt her fumble with the zip of his trousers.
‘Aurelie …’ He groaned her name, felt her fingers slide around him. He pushed aside the lacy scrap of her underwear, stroked the silkiness of her thigh. He slid his fingers higher, kissed her deeper, his body pulsing with need, aching with want. Yet even as his hands roamed over her, teasing and finding, a part of his brain started to buzz.
Distantly he realised she’d stopped responding. Her arms had fallen away from him and she was lying tensely beneath him, stiff and straight.
She let out a shudder that could have been a sob or a sigh, and Luke pulled back to look down at her.
Her eyes were scrunched shut, her breathing ragged, her whole body radiating tension. She looked, he thought with a savage twist of self-loathing, as if she were being tortured.
Swearing,