It’s In His Kiss. Eve Devon

it back into the bag it had fallen out of, Luke had looked…hot and maybe a little bit bothered.

      To be fair, Sephy probably could have explained that she had stashed some of her more colourful bras into her bag to bring over here and see if a splash of colour might be the missing ingredient in the banners.

      But she had been too busy zeroing in on the way his hands had held the bra, making it look like one of the sexiest garments she had ever designed.

      Snapshot after snapshot had flooded her imagination.

      Male hands on a female body, highlighting and showcasing the lingerie the model was wearing.

      Luke’s hands.

      ‘I’m going to need more information,’ Luke said, his deep, rough voice exuding patience.

      Dark-brown eyes met his moss-green ones.

      ‘More?’ Really, was it so difficult to understand? ‘I’m talking a few photographs of your hands…and your torso. Sans shirt.’ That last bit had totally been said under her breath because her eyes had taken another peek at the way that soft cotton pulled across hard muscle and more images had flooded her brain so that she was suddenly one-hundred-per-cent sure that what would make her collection fly off the shelf was if Luke’s upper body…his upper naked body was also somehow in the photos.

      In desperation she looked around for her usually ever-present coffee. She needed a drink. Stat.

      The next thing she knew Luke was fishing his phone out of his pocket.

      ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

      ‘I’m making a doctor’s appointment,’ he said matter-of-factly, ‘because one of us definitely needs some help. Either my ears need syringing or you really did ask me to take off my clothes so that you could use my body to sell sex at the opening of your lingerie line – in which case it’s you who needs the help.’

      ‘That’s exactly what I’m trying to ask you for, idiot – some help.’ He knew she wasn’t any good at this; couldn’t he at least cut her a little slack?

      ‘I’m thinking the kind of help you need comes more under the heading of–’

      ‘Hey,’ Sephy cocked a hip in indignation, ‘if you’re sitting there thinking this is a “men-in- white-coats job”, then it’s on you to help me sort out childcare.’

      Luke’s head snapped up from his phone. ‘I’m sorry, but did you ask me for help. Again. As in twice in one day? Once for,’ Luke paused and gave his head a quick shake, as if even his massive brain couldn’t quite compute what she was asking him to do. ‘And then, again, just now?’

      ‘Oh, forget it,’ Sephy said, walking to the edge of the catwalk and hopping down. Normally she could stand a little being laughed at. She had learnt that getting over herself allowed her to concentrate on making sure Daisy’s needs came first. But, honestly, if she had known starting a business was going to turn her inside out like this…

      She still would have done it, she thought on an inward sigh. She didn’t have any other choice. Waiting until she finished her degree in fashion and then trying to get an internship somewhere wasn’t going to cut it. Not now she needed funds for her and Daisy to live on.

      Marching towards the heavy wooden double doors of the ballroom, she heard the scrape of a chair being pushed back.

      ‘Hey, wait up.’

      ‘Look, it was a dumb idea,’ Sephy said, shoving her long hair behind her ears before reaching out to grab the door handle. ‘Way too left-field.’ She tried out a light laugh to show it was no big deal, but when Luke didn’t murmur in acknowledgement, she added, ‘Put it down to me being so tired I can hardly think straight.’

      When he stepped up behind her she nearly let out a squeal. They didn’t do getting in each other’s personal body space. But then, maybe the part where she tried asking him to pose semi-nude and model for her kind of switched things up.

      ‘Look, left field or not, at least explain why for me,’ Luke said, his voice now gentle and she hated that she had brought that out in him. She could not remember the last time someone had felt the need to treat her with kid gloves.

      ‘Come on, what’s the worst that could happen?’ he added.

      Sephy swallowed and continued to stare at the century-old patina on the oak doors in front of her.

      What was the worst that could happen?

      The worst that could happen was that he would see her as needy.

      As less than she wanted to be.

      Then he would say ‘no’ anyway and it would be always there between them. She didn’t have time to then be worrying if he’d said ‘no’ because she had finally crossed that invisible line she’d so carefully carved into the sand between them.

      ‘Why is it you Kings have such a problem with asking for help?’ Luke said, stepping back and showing the first sign of impatience with her.

      ‘Just lucky, I guess,’ Sephy whispered and turned around to face him, still feeling that the only way to save her ad campaign was to have a proper shot at asking Luke to model for her.

      ‘Cursed, more like,’ Luke muttered and shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans.

      He was right.

      It was a curse of sorts.

      The competitive streak that ran through the Kings bordered on the ridiculous. The fact that she and her siblings never wanted to appear like they couldn’t achieve whatever they set out to achieve was arrogant beyond belief, and the blame lay squarely at the feet of their father, Jeremy King.

      Bracing automatically, she felt the wave of grief rise up to take a hefty swipe at her. The emotional maelstrom her father’s death had brought was in such opposition to the studied passivity she had strived for while he was alive that sometimes she wondered if he was up there just to punish her.

      But because life was better when she wasn’t feeling angry or negative, she deliberately stepped away from her thoughts and concentrated on her current problem instead.

      The difficulty in asking Luke for help really had little to do with wanting to achieve things herself and everything to do with how good he was at helping.

      There was this remarkable generosity within him and Sephy was finding it harder and harder to keep the score of who helped who balanced.

      He had already helped her develop a storefront for her website and made sure it could handle the extra traffic she hoped for. Now here she was, two weeks to the launch of Seraphic and he’d had to go and inspire her to come up with the perfect solution to her latest problem.

      Trying to gather up her thoughts she side-stepped Luke, chose a chair at random, sat down and stared up at the banners.

      ‘What do you see when you look at these?’ she asked, gesturing to them.

      Luke walked up to her and sat down on the chair next to hers, his head tipped up to the life-sized models staring back down at him.

      ‘I see underwear models.’

      ‘Exactly.’

      ‘Surely that’s the point,’ he said.

      ‘No. That is so not the point.’ Frustrated, Sephy twisted in her seat to look at him while she tried to explain. ‘I need you to see “I want you”.’

      Luke went absolutely still.

      The ballroom felt like it had shrunk to the size of a steam-room for two, and suddenly Sephy really wanted to play with her hair, or lick her lips, or meet Luke’s quiet and intense gaze with one of her own.

      Wow. Okay. Of all the Freudian slip-ups, in all the world…

      Dragging in a breath she tore her gaze away to face forward again