Eve Devon - It’s In His Kiss

‘Haven’t you got enough to be worrying about at the minute?’ Luke prompted. ‘Ryan Love is not your responsibility.’

‘I know. I just want him to be the best version of himself. You know? For Daisy. She deserves to have a decent father figure in her life.’

‘She was doing okay before he came along.’

Sephy’s heart dipped at Luke’s automatic defence of her, and then dipped again because she knew that Daisy had already lost her granddad and the special bond the two of them had developed. Then, just as they were all getting to know Jared again, he’d had to return to his own life in New York.

The only constant male figure in Daisy’s life was Luke and in those hours before dawn when Sephy did most of her waking-up-in-a-cold-sweat-parental-worrying, she acknowledged her friendship with Luke was getting to be dangerously close to something she counted on. What if Daisy became too attached to Luke and Luke finally found someone to get serious with and drifted out of their lives?

‘All I really want is for Daisy to get to have that balanced parenting that Ryan could add,’ she admitted to Luke. Before Ryan had broken up with his girlfriend, Sephy had only allowed a few short visits so Daisy could start getting to know him. She hadn’t wanted to force too much contact until she could trust Ryan to stay in the area and want a relationship with his daughter. Now, she worried that if Ryan was struggling and needed to concentrate on himself for a while, and Daisy noticed, things were going to get messy.

‘I’m already dreading how to handle the teenage years,’ Sephy continued. ‘It’ll be just my luck if she ends up like I was at that age.’

‘And how were you when you were that age?’

‘I was –’ Sephy broke off as memories flooded her of all the times she hadn’t so much as snuck back into the house late at night as deliberately announced her return as loudly as possible. Back then she had seen any attention as good attention. She cleared her throat and finished with, ‘Let’s simply say I was not the best version of myself that I could have been.’

Luke looked like he wanted to know more, but she was suddenly filled with the need for a little reciprocation. ‘What were you like as a teenager?’ she asked.

He hesitated, as if quickly weighing up what to go with before finally responding with a one word answer of, ‘Shy.’

Sephy blinked. ‘Shy?’

‘Yep,’ he confirmed, staring down at his hands and flexing his fingers, as if he was deliberately trying to remain relaxed.

‘You?’ Sephy repeated, dumbfounded. ‘You were shy?’

‘I know.’ He flicked a quick glance at her. ‘I guess you can’t even imagine what that would be like, can you?’

‘Guess not.’ There had never been any room for shyness in the King household. ‘Is that why you wouldn’t entertain the idea of doing the photo shoot?’

‘Little bit, yeah.’

Sephy couldn’t believe the quietness she’d always appreciated in him might stem from shyness.

‘I guess I forget that because you don’t look like your typical geek. That doesn’t mean you’re not more comfortable surrounded by and communicating via a bank of computers, but you’re not shy around me,’ she added, thinking aloud.

‘You’re right, I’m not.’

Sephy was still trying to work out a way of asking him precisely what he meant by that when he sat back against the sofa cushions, reminding her how close they were and forcing her to appreciate that it wasn’t that her sofa was miniscule, it was that Luke could hold his own in the large-male-presence stakes.

‘Tell me about why you chose to specialise in underwear rather than outerwear,’ he asked in a fast-and-smooth change of subject that had Sephy needing a moment to catch up.

She stared fixedly at the lingerie on the armchair she usually sat on and decided to accept his change of subject on account of it meaning she could talk about something she understood, as opposed to what might or might not be going on under the surface of their friendship.

‘Why did I choose lingerie? I guess underwear is all about foundation.’

‘Not sexiness?’

Sephy’s nose wrinkled as she smiled, because what woman didn’t like to wear something that made her feel feminine, pretty, seductive and hot? ‘That too – but mostly designing lingerie is about getting the structure right.’

Luke appeared to think for a moment. ‘Feeling rock solid underneath equals feeling invincible on the outside?’

‘Um, yeah.’ Wow. Sephy let her breath out softly. He got it. She tried not to be too impressed.

‘What if someone prefers going commando?’ Luke asked.

‘Huh?’ Why had she thought this conversation would be safer again? And why, for the love of God, was she suddenly thinking about Luke and the way his jeans fit him and whether or not he preferred to go commando?

‘You know – someone who prefers not to wear any underwear.’

‘Yes. Thank you. I do know what going commando means.’ She would not look at him. She would not . Reaching forward she put her plate carefully back on the coffee table and tried to surreptitiously add another one or two millimetres of breathing space between them as she tucked a leg under her and eased back against the back of the sofa.

‘I guess,’ she said, as casually as she could manage, ‘if a person prefers not to wear underwear, well then I guess they’re not my customer.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Luke said with a quiet intensity that had her breath coming shorter. ‘I think your designs could convince them.’

‘I know you could,’ she whipped back.

Luke grinned. ‘And that’s absolutely all you’re asking me to do by posing in those photos? You really think I could help you sell more lingerie?’

‘Of course.’

‘And my head would be cropped from all the shots?’

Sephy felt the leap of excitement and tried not to get carried away. Slowly, she turned to face him more fully. ‘What exactly are you saying, here?’

‘I’m saying okay.’

‘Okay…?’ She had to have this wrong, didn’t she? Somehow the combination of pheromones and heat caused by her proximity to him had jumbled up the connections in her brain. He wasn’t really saying…

‘Okay, I will be your model.’

Sephy’s hand came up to her mouth. Oh. My. God.

She could kiss him.

Wait – no.

She really couldn’t.

A huge weight felt as if it had been lifted off her shoulders, making her want to jump up and happy-dance all over the living room.

‘On two conditions,’ Luke said.

The carousel of joy inside of her wound down and came to an abrupt halt.

‘What are your conditions?’ she made herself ask because, suddenly, with what she had asked for within touching distance, she realised she needed to keep her business head-on.

‘First condition: you are the model in the photographs with me.’

Sephy snorted. ‘Very funny. What’s your real condition?’

‘I mean it, Sephy. You are the model I model with. They’re your designs. You shouldn’t really have a problem with that.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not a –’ she stopped because Luke was looking at her like he was about to say touché. ‘What’s your second condition?’ she asked, needing something to take her mind off what it would feel like to have Luke see her in her underwear, because telling herself it would be like posing in a bikini wasn’t in any way having a dousing-with-cold-water effect.

Luke looked her calmly in the eye and said, ‘My second condition is that you agree to pose as my fiancée when my parents show up for a visit in a couple of weeks.’