Lynsey Stevens - A Physical Affair

The message that came through loudly and clearly was all purely physical. And it involved only Eden Cassidy.

Oh, no! Keira bit back a moan. This was absurd. She couldn’t be attracted to such a man.

‘Keira!’ Daniel squeezed her arm and she broke the hold those implacable eyes had on her and turned her unfocused gaze on the younger man. ‘Keira?’ Daniel frowned slightly, leaning closer to her, seemingly oblivious of the speculative glances cast their way. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine,’ Keira hastened to assure him as she put more space between them.

He gave her one questioning glance before repeating his words. ‘Come and I’ll introduce you to Sam.’

Meeting Daniel’s grandfather would be bad enough, but out of the corner of her eye she saw that Eden Cassidy had moved to join Sir Samuel Ford. If she went with Daniel now there’d be no escaping him.

Why had she…? She straightened her backbone. She only had herself to blame for getting herself into this situation so she might as well make the most of it. And that included Eden Cassidy. Her nerve-endings began to beat a wild tattoo and with no little effort she pulled herself together.

‘Ready?’ Daniel queried.

‘Why not?’ she said softly, and something in her tone brought a smile to Daniel’s face.

Then he was moving them purposefully through the crowd towards the guest of honour.

‘You know, just at this moment I could almost wish I were ten years older,’ Daniel said out of the corner of his mouth as he noticed a contemporary of his grandfather’s running his eyes over Keira as they passed.

‘Cool it, Daniel. Otherwise I doubt you’ll see twenty, much less twenty-nine,’ Keira retaliated with barely a movement of her lips, and Daniel’s grin broadened.

‘I kid you not, Keira. You’re the only woman I’ve met who really is as fantastic as she looks.’

‘High praise, Mrs Strong?’ A cool voice stopped Daniel and Keira in their tracks.

‘I WAS just going to introduce Keira to Sam,’ Daniel said defensively, and his uncle motioned that they accompany him towards the co-founder of Cassidy-Ford.

‘Daniel!’ Sam Ford wrapped his arms around his grandson and clapped him on the back.

‘Happy birthday, Sam,’ Daniel said sincerely. ‘This do is a little ostentatious, isn’t it?’

‘Not a bit of it. Quite fitting for someone who’s eighty years young.’ His grandfather laughed, his shrewd eyes taking in Keira as she stood tensely beside Eden Cassidy.

Daniel turned, but before he could make the introductions his uncle spoke.

‘Sam, meet Keira Strong, Daniel’s boss at Chloe magazine.’

Daniel’s jaw tightened as his gaze warred with Eden’s.

‘Pleased to meet you, Miss Strong.’ Sam took Keira’s hand. ‘You know my daughter launched that magazine just before Daniel was born? It was her brainchild, as a matter of fact. She put it on the publishing map so I suppose it’s only fitting that Daniel learns his ABC down there. I hear Chloe’s still ahead of its competitors.’

‘Yes. We seem to be keeping our hold on the top rung.’ Keira’s tongue felt thick in her mouth, every nerve-ending so very aware of Eden Cassidy’s hard body so close beside her.

‘And I know that takes plain old hard work,’ Sam continued, his eyes going perceptively from Eden to his grandson and then back to Keira. ‘How long have you been part of Chloe’s team?’

‘About five years.’

Eden Cassidy moved slightly and the material of his suit jacket brushed against Keira’s bare skin, making the hair on her arms stand on end. A shiver scurried from that transitory point of contact to blossom in the pit of her stomach and she shifted to disguise her reflex movement.

‘She’s a genius.’ Daniel’s enthusiastic voice brought her attention slowly back from its erotic spree. ‘Works like a slave and expects us general dogsbodies to do the same. I daren’t look as if I’m not busy or she finds me half a dozen things to be done. Honest, Sam.’

‘Your worst enemy is over-acting, Daniel,’ Eden said drily, and Sam chuckled.

‘Your uncle and I told you it wouldn’t be a bed of roses out there in the real world, Daniel.’

‘Ah, but I’m getting to smell the flowers, Sam,’ Daniel said with a smile, and his grandfather roared with laughter.

‘And I’m dead green with envy. Especially since I never had a boss with legs like that.’

Keira felt three pairs of masculine eyes rove over her and she raised her chin truculently.

Daniel met her stormy gaze and grinned sheepishly. ‘Another sexist comment like that, Sam, and I won’t have a boss either. I’ll be out on my proverbial ear.’

‘I don’t do the hiring and firing, Daniel,’ Keira heard herself say pompously, and cringed at her superciliousness. Where had her sense of humour gone?

‘Isn’t that Bob and Jean just arriving?’ Eden put in easily. “They’re your godparents and you haven’t seen them in ages, Daniel, so why don’t you go with Sam to welcome them while Mrs Strong and I test out the band.’ He turned to Keira and held out his hand. ‘May I have the pleasure of this dance, Mrs Strong?’

Before Keira could decline his invitation she was in his arms and he was guiding her expertly through the throng of dancers.

‘Is it too late to refuse?’ she asked him caustically, and his mouth twitched in a fleeting smile.

‘Would you have?’ His blue eyes gazed down at her and Keira almost missed her step. Eden Cassidy, of course, took her falter in his stride.

‘For the record, yes. I would.’

‘Then it’s fortunate I didn’t wait for your crushing rejection.’

His arm around her waist moved her imperceptibly closer to him and his hand was now resting on her bare back, fingertips nestling in the indentation of her spine. Keira’s senses focused on his touch, felt the warmth that flared into full-blown fire. Her whole body grew hot and she knew high colour flooded her face.

The band chose that moment to change tempo and lapsed into a bracket of popular romantic ballads. As the mellow notes flowed about them Keira’s perfidious soul seemed to be as one with his, and suddenly the intimacy of it made her knees want to fold beneath her.

Her breasts tingled where they brushed rhythmically against his hard chest, her nipples straining against the thin material of her bodice, her stomach muscles contracting as his thighs touched hers.

Eden Cassidy was an expert dancer and Keira’s feet followed his lead as though they had been dancing together for years. In a previous life perhaps they had, as some believed.

Her eyes settled on her hand resting on his broad suit-clad shoulder, her skin pale against the dark material, and she realised that should she move that hand mere millimetres she would feel the taut muscles in his neck, that she would be free to caress the strands of dark hair resting on his nape.

She tore her gaze away, concentrating feverishly on the innocuous knot of his tie. But then her mind’s eye conjured up the movement of his strong hands adroitly folding that so very masculine accessory and her breathing became even more ragged. And her recalcitrant senses careered way out of control.

Of their own volition her grey eyes rose to the jut of his firm chin, to settle on his mouth. His lips were thin, the controlled line suggesting he rarely laughed, and the faint shadowy hollows beneath his high cheekbones made Keira wonder if he might sometimes neglect his health in pursuit of his business commitments.

At that moment he sidestepped her to avoid another couple, the instinctive movement drawing her impossibly closer to him, and her blood seemed to bolt through her veins with runaway recklessness. Her complete nervous system went on imperilled alert. Keira knew she couldn’t have been more aware of him had they been naked, and she went cold and then hot again within the space of a split-second.