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She missed a step and was drawn still closer to the lean ainst the hard wall of his chest, his breath fanning her teht thelitter along her cheekbones, tracing it lightly The asp as his fingers left her face to trace instead the glitter-dusted curve of her breasts above the bodice of her dress

‘Very enticing’ He smiled at her and in the darkness there was no irony in his s in her throat at the unbelievable appeal of that smile

For the rest of the evening she clung to hi He left her once to collect some food for them both from the buffet tables, and Ann hurried across to whisper,

‘Keep it up—you’re doing marvels’ You should have seen poor Kirsty’s face when she saw you dancing with hi, but I suspect she’s discovered that her idol ht itwith hih for the fact that other woerous piquancy’

Unable to do anything other than agree with her sister’s observation and worried about her niece’s reaction to her behaviour, at first Chelsea almost missed Slade’s cool, ‘Do you have your ownhome?’

For aa taxi, and then she reestion, and sue to say with a slow smile,

‘I’h to offer me a lift’

She couldn’t haveany plainer, and she alrooves running alongside his mouth, as he drawled, ‘Allow me’

As luck would have it Kirsty was standing with a group of teenagers by the foyer, and as they walked past the group Chelsea couldn’t bear to look at her niece

At last they were out in the cool night air, crisply autumnal with the intensely evocative and faintlyin the stillness

‘Here we are’

Slade stopped alongside a svelte, powerful-looking car, its dark paintwork glea Chelsea inside Expensive hidethe dark interior,

‘You haven’t askedbonnet nosed its way out into the traffic

In the darkness she could feel hian in the pit of her stomach and spread outwards as he said smoothly,

‘First I thought we’d go to my place, have a cup of coffee’

For a moment Chelsea’s brain refused to work When she had been planning the evening she had never thought as far as this So the hotel with Slade and then getting a taxi ho as she saw the cold cyniciser suddenly welled up inside her It didn’t take uess that ‘coffee’ wasn’t all he had in ance of the man! she seethed Did he expect her to jump into bed with him simply because she had accepted a lift from him?

It wasn’t purely because she had angled for a lift, honesty made her ad the evening Forcefully she pushed aside the thought So Slade Ashford thought she was going to allow him to make love to her Perhaps it was time that someone showed hily irresistible as he seemed to think

This thought was enough to boost her spirits and keep her doubts at bay for

the fifteen minutes it took theious luxury two-storey block on the outskirts of the town set in the grounds of what had once been the old manor house

With a cool economy of movement that made it ie at the back of the apartments, locked it, and escorted her into an attractive communal hallway