I shut off the water and then took a look at myself in the mirror. Without make-up remover, I’d had to just scrub at my ruined make-up as best I could. It was pretty much all gone, which looked a hell of a lot better than a clown face. But now I was completely bare.
What I needed was my purse, so I could at least apply a little lipstick. It had been a long time since I dated, but I hadn’t completely lost touch with my feminine instincts. I looked around for a towel...and then realized there weren’t any.
I poked my head out of the door. My clothes, as Luka had promised, had gone. So had my purse. I was now stranded, naked, and dripping wet. I swallowed. “Um. Hello?”
Nothing. But, if I strained my ears, I could hear something coming from the open-plan living area. A crackling sound. The penthouse seemed to be mainly in darkness, with only the occasional spotlight and the moonlight coming in through the windows to light my way.
I took a deep breath...and stepped out, naked, to find him.
The penthouse had cream carpets, the pile so deep that my feet almost disappeared. I squelched across them, wincing. First I’d probably ruined his car’s upholstery, now his penthouse. But he had stranded me without a towel...possibly deliberately. A deep, hot throb went through me.
As I rounded the corner, I saw him. He was standing by an enormous fireplace in which a fire was blazing, the logs stacked as high as my hip. The scale of it would have dwarfed any other man, but not Luka. He was still in his black shirt and black jeans and yet, despite the fine clothes, he looked...rugged. The fire was lighting up his high cheekbones and solid jaw in reds and oranges and I couldn’t remember ever seeing anything more beautiful. He was like a statue to male power, cast in granite.
And then he turned and saw me and I saw his eyes gleam in the darkness. I felt his gaze rake down my naked, dripping body and I swear half the water just evaporated right there, my whole body going warm under his eyes. I felt my core dissolve into liquid heat.
He beckoned with his finger.
I stepped towards him and, as I passed a framed photo on the wall, I saw my reflection in the glass. My pale skin was gleaming wetly, still beaded with moisture. My hair was a twisted, wet rope down my back. My nipples had already hardened from the sudden transition from hot shower to cold air. But I was just...me. Why does he want me?! This should be Svetlana or Natalia or...hell, Nancy, stalking around in their high heels with their perfect make-up. Why me?
I started walking towards him and, with every step, I could feel that charge in the air between us, tingling and sparkling against every inch of exposed skin. I wasn’t sure how much he could see but I knew I was still mostly veiled in shadow. Every step brought me closer to the firelight and put more of me on display. I started to breathe faster.
When I was still ten feet away, I could feel the heat of the fire. I looked down and saw that the warm light was hitting my calves, now, allowing him to see them. Another step, and it was over my knees. Another, and it was all the way up my thighs. The room was so quiet that I could hear my own ragged breathing.
His eyes ran down and then up my body and he gave that smile, the one that seemed to mean he approved, and the heat started to build faster and faster, as if a switch had been thrown. How could just a smile, just the knowledge that he wanted me, do that to me? God, I was completely at his mercy.#p#分页标题#e#
This time, he didn’t beckon me. He said, “Come here,” and I could hear the thick layer of lust under his words.
My legs seemed to move of their own accord. I closed the remaining distance between us, the last shadows retreating up my thighs, stomach, and breasts until they disappeared completely and my whole body was wrapped in flickering orange light. It made the soft curls of brown hair between my thighs gleam. As I neared him, I stepped right in front of the fireplace and the heat was like a furnace.
I stopped. There were no more than a few feet between us, now, but he didn’t reach for me or tell me to come closer. I felt the fire beginning to dry the water from my body, the heat of it almost too much to bear on the side of me that was closest. And Luka was just as close—how is he not hot? But he just stood there as if made of rock and I didn’t doubt that he could stand there all night if he wanted to.
His own comfort didn’t seem to bother him at all. He was only interested in one thing, at that moment, and that was me. His gaze traced every line of my body: my cheekbone, the curve of my lip, the shape of my neck. It went lower and I felt it like a touch on my breasts, the nipples puckering even more as his eyes swept over them. Down over my stomach, down between my thighs—