Eve Devon - It’s In His Kiss

A division of HarperCollins Publishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

HarperImpulse an imprint of

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Harper Impulse 2016

Copyright © Eve Devon 2016

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers 2016

Cover design by Cherie Chapman

Eve Devon asserts the moral right to

be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book

is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are

the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is

entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International

and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

By payment of the required fees, you have been granted

the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access

and read the text of this e-book on screen.

No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted,

downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or

stored in or introduced into any information storage and

retrieval system, in any form or by any means,

whether electronic or mechanical, now known or

hereinafter invented, without the express

written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © April 2016 ISBN: 9780007558476

Version 2016-03-30

For Lana and the oodles of joyful ‘Darth Daisy’ inspiration you supply and because one day you will be old enough to know what your ‘Mad Auntie Eve’ does for a living!

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page It’s In His Kiss EVE DEVON A division of HarperCollins Publishers www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright HarperImpulse an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by Harper Impulse 2016 Copyright © Eve Devon 2016 Cover images © Shutterstock.com Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers 2016 Cover design by Cherie Chapman Eve Devon asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Ebook Edition © April 2016 ISBN: 9780007558476 Version 2016-03-30

Dedication For Lana and the oodles of joyful ‘Darth Daisy’ inspiration you supply and because one day you will be old enough to know what your ‘Mad Auntie Eve’ does for a living!

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

About the Author

Also by Eve Devon

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

‘Wait – what? Did you just ask me to sell sex at the launch party for your lingerie line?’

Luke Jackson’s usually reserved tone had taken on a new, gruff edge that trickled over Sephy King’s senses, making her heartbeat spike alarmingly. As if her heart needed any more of a workout.

Standing on the newly constructed catwalk in the large ballroom of the King’s family estate, it turned out that T minus two weeks to the launch of her new lingerie collection, Seraphic, and with her stress levels higher than the Shard with the Cheese Grater building stuck on top of it, Sephy’s heart was skipping, dipping and nose-diving quite enough, thank you very much.

Lord, could this go more spectacularly wrong? She should never have attempted to ask him without first practising. She already found his rock-solid approach to their friendship way hotter than she should, without introducing words like ‘sex’ to their banter.

She flicked a look to Luke and saw that her friend had gone from slouching in one of the two hundred gilt-framed chairs surrounding the catwalk, to sitting up a little more straight and a lot more alert.

Damn. There was now no way to retract her garbled plea.

Sephy tried to remind herself that she was good at thinking on her feet. That she excelled at rolling with the punches. But this was Luke she had just made a fool of herself in front of and embarrassment was brought to her on a whiff of defeat that had her shoulders dipping a little.

Clearing her throat she went with a lame, ‘It’s not that I want you to sell,’ she paused and flapped a hand about, creating a new and interesting gesture to indicate the word ‘sex’, ‘specifically – it’s more, the idea of it.’

‘The idea of it?’ Luke’s eyebrows remained in the region of his hairline. ‘I thought you asked me over here to check out how well it was all coming together before getting around to asking me to hand out a few catalogues on the night?’

‘Actually, I have someone for that. What I’m asking for involves a more,’ she licked her lips and searched her head for a tactful phrase, ‘hands-on approach.’

‘Hands-on?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Okay. So, then, you’re going to have to be more explicit about the sex thing.’

Sephy blinked as Luke relaxed back against the chair he was sitting on, his arms stretching out to rest against the backs of the chairs either side of him in a pose that practically shouted, ‘and Honey, I’m all ears.’

She forbade herself to drop her gaze to where his olive-green tee now stretched across his impressively honed chest. Friends weren’t supposed to notice things like that and it was bad enough that the tips of her ears had grown hot at hearing the words ‘explicit’ and ‘sex’ coming out of his mouth. No way did she need her eyes getting in on his act.

And it had to be an act, didn’t it? How could Luke not be as mortified as she to be having this conversation? But as her eyes disobeyed her, and tracked back from their circuit around the vaulted-ceilinged room to land on his face, she caught the unmistakable edge of a grin creeping on to his expression.

Double-triple-quadruple damn.

This had to mean the dimples were about to make an appearance.

Sephy steeled herself for their impact.

Mortification wasn’t even on his radar, was it?

Figured.

Okay, so she was going to have to pull on her big-girl panties and get explicit.

She could do that, right?

She’d already had to employ her most fierce expression while using words of one syllable to get the printer to correct all the signage she wanted for the launch party. Then, in order to get the contractor to finish the catwalk ahead of schedule so that she could see how it all looked and make any changes to the layout in good time, she’d had to go from a winning smile and cajoling tone to being downright expletively explicit.