Anna Cleary - Keeping Her Up All Night

Not caring to boast, she made a non-committal, so-so sort of gesture. ‘Oh, well …’

‘I’m not surprised,’ he said warmly. ‘There are so many of those blokes about. Operators looking for a beautiful woman to hook up with.’ He nodded, sighing. ‘Yeah, I know the type. First they use the old sweet-talk routine to soften you up. Then they manoeuvre you into a clinch.’ He glanced at her, his eyes gleaming. ‘Or is that where they start these days? With a kiss?’

As if he didn’t know. Her heart bumped into double-time.

This conversation was heading in a certain direction, but it was undeniably thrilling. It had been ages since she’d felt on the verge of something truly dangerous and fantastic. All right, so he was an operator of the worst kind. She could be too, if she had to be. She hadn’t taken a celibacy vow yet, had she? Why else was she wearing a push-up bra?

As a child, ANNA CLEARYloved reading so much that during the midnight hours she was forced to read with a torch under the bedcovers, to lull the suspicions of her sleep-obsessed parents. From an early age she dreamed of writing her own books. She saw herself in a stone cottage by the sea, wearing a velvet smoking jacket and sipping sherry, like Somerset Maugham.

In real life she became a schoolteacher, and her greatest pleasure was teaching children to write beautiful stories.

A little while ago she and one of her friends made a pact to each write the first chapter of a romance novel in their holidays. From writing her very first line Anna was hooked, and she gave up teaching to become a full-time writer. She now lives in Queensland, with a deeply sensitive and intelligent cat. She prefers champagne to sherry, and loves music, books, four-legged people, trees, movies and restaurants.

Recent titles by the same author:

THE ITALIAN NEXT DOOR …

DO NOT DISTURB

WEDDING NIGHT WITH A STRANGER

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

Keeping Her Up

All Night

Anna Cleary

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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GUY WILDER wasn’t on the hunt any more. He’d given up chicks with promises of forever on their honeyed tongues. These days he poured his emotions into songs. Often tear-jerkers in the key of tragedy, best wailed after midnight in haunts for the broken-hearted. But they were tuneful, sexy, and always with a deep and honest soul beat. Songs a man could believe in, with no bitter twists at the end.

Yep, he was still a single man, and it was all good. By day he built his company, by night he dreamed up songs, and the Blue Suede boys were keen to perform them.

However badly they murdered his lyrics, the Suede showed promise. So, on the night of his return from a work trip to the States, the boys’ need for an emergency venue persuaded Guy to let them into his aunt’s apartment above the Kirribilli Mansions Arcade. Auntie Jean wouldn’t mind. Well, she was trusting him to hang there for a week or two.

The thing was, the Suede could pound out a pretty stirring beat. Guy did give some consideration to the noise. When the boys crowded through the door with their instruments he eyed the flowery fanlight above the neighbour’s place, but the apartment was in darkness.

It wasn’t late enough for sleeping. Who’d have guessed anyone was home?

He ordered pizza, but once he and the guys started on the song dinner floated from their minds. It wasn’t until the tempo had hotted up and they were into laying down chords that the distant ding of the bell penetrated the boys’ enthusiasm.

Calling a halt, Guy abandoned the keyboard of his aunt’s fabulous old grand and headed for the door.

The pizza lad was out there, all right, but not at Guy’s door. At the neighbour’s.

‘I assure you it wasn’t me,’ the woman was saying in a low, melodious voice. ‘I never order pizza. It must have been whoever’s in there, making that awful racket. Did you try knocking? Though you might need a sledgehammer to make any …’

Impact . Guy finished the sentence for her in his head.

She swivelled around to look at him, as did the boy, and impact happened.

Violet eyes, dark-fringed and serious, and cheekbones in a piquant face. A mouth as ripe and sweet as a plum. Gorgeous, was his first dazzled thought. A gorgeous, desirable, tantalising—trap. She was five feet six or thereabouts, unless his expert eye was dazzled out of whack, with long, dark, lustrous hair tied back. Gloriously rich , long, dark and lustrous. And legs … Oh, God, legs. And heaven in between.

He couldn’t see much of the heaven through the sweatshirt, but all the signs were there. Hills. Valleys. Curves. Anyway, a man didn’t stare obviously at a woman’s breasts. Or any other parts they might choose to conceal.

But if she happened to be wearing a short flimsy-looking dress thing, frilling out from under the longish sweatshirt, naturally his eye was bound to be snagged here and there. Particularly if she also had satin slippers on her feet. Tied on ballerina fashion, with criss-crossing strings.

He drank her in to the full, and she gave him every reason to believe she was eyeing him right back—only hers was a sternish scrutiny that seemed not to be dwelling on his manly appeal.

He smiled. ‘I think they’re for me.’ He produced money and accepted the pile of boxes. ‘Thanks, mate. Keep this for your trouble.’

The lad disappeared via the lift, the stairs—or maybe he vanished through the wall.

‘Sorry if you were disturbed, Miss …?’

‘Amber O’Neill.’ Her tone was earnest. ‘I don’t think you realise how much the sound reverberates in these apartments. It magnifies, actually, and the walls are very thin.’

He lifted his brows. ‘Yeah? The sound magnifies. Now, that’s interesting. A unique accoustic. Thanks for mentioning it.’

Amber , he was thinking, riveted on her irises, drowning in the violet. And her mouth—so soft and full. A dangerous yearning stirred the devil in his blood. Oh, man, it had been a long, long time.

Apparently she still hadn’t noticed his charm, for her luscious lips tightened. ‘Some people have to work, you know. Some even have businesses to run.’

‘Do they?’ He smiled, refusing to be chastised at eight-thirty in the evening. Practically daylight. Enjoying stretching out the tease. Listening to her voice. ‘Tsk. Don’t those people ever play?’

Maybe he should suggest she throw him over her lap and spank him. Now, there would be an inspiration. And right next door, too.