‘Yeah, but not this close.’ Her eyes grew impossibly wide, and he knew what she’d seen.
‘Want to have a closer look?’ He gave his eyebrows a comic waggle in an attempt to dial down the sexual tension because his dick was throbbing again.
Her gaze hadn’t strayed below his waist though. She walked towards him, eyes on the silver nipple piercing he’d had done when he was nineteen and out to prove something. ‘Did it hurt?’
‘Nah.’ She kept staring and he cleared his throat. ‘You can touch it, if you like.’
Her lips twitched. ‘Are we still talking about the piercing?’
God, he was in trouble here. ‘To be clear, I’d love your hands on all of me, but yeah, you can start with the piercing.’ Her fingers tentatively touched the ring and he hissed, the ache between his legs intensifying.
‘Why did you have it done?’
Ah. Embarrassed, he glanced away. That was one sure-fire way to cool his arousal. Ask him a searching question about his youth. ‘I thought the girls would like it.’
‘Is that why you work out with weights, too? To attract the opposite sex?’
Ouch. Now he sounded shallow, and maybe he was, but there was other stuff behind that decision. Stuff he didn’t want to tell her yet because it would further dent her opinion of him. ‘Is it working?’ he asked instead, forcing his mouth into a cocky smile.
She didn’t see it, because she seemed intent on watching her fingers as they trailed across his pecs and down to his abs. His muscles quivered as her touch left a burning trail of heat that went straight to the part of him that strained beneath his boxers. He was seconds from pleading with her to touch him there, when she snatched her hand away, as if suddenly aware of what she was doing.
That’s when her eyes landed on the side of his ribcage. The tattoo was small; most women didn’t notice it or if they did, they weren’t bothered enough to ask about it. He wanted Mia to ask, to show an interest in him, not just his body, even though he wasn’t ready to give her an answer.
But instead she turned away and picked up the small black handbag she’d left on the floor by the bed. ‘Thanks for the offer of coffee but I need to get back to my desk. I have this website I need to make.’
‘On a Sunday?’
‘This one is in my own time.’
Damn it. Guilt wormed through him as he realised whose website she was talking about. Yet even as he reached for her arm to stop her, to tell her to forget it, he’d bloody hire someone else to make the damn thing, he saw her guard come down, shutting him out. ‘Please don’t leave yet, not like this.’ He searched her face, trying to work out what was going on behind her gorgeous blue eyes. ‘What’s going on? You seem upset.’
Her eyes avoided his. ‘I’m not. I just need to get back to mine.’
Reluctantly he let go of her arm and grabbed his black jeans from where he’d discarded them on the floor, carefully easing the zip over his now fading erection. ‘Okay, I’ll see you out.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Your flat has the same layout as mine. I think I can find the front door.’
He gave her a wry smile. ‘Yeah, but you’ve forgotten there’s a beast out there. I don’t want you to come to any harm.’
The guard dropped, just a little, but whatever she was about to say in reply was halted by the sound of a female voice.
‘Luke, are you still in bed?’
His heart plummeted. Shit, what was she doing here?
‘It’s my neighbour,’ he muttered to Mia, yanking a clean T-shirt from the drawer and shoving it over his head. Her arrival was all he bloody needed. Already Mia was thinking God knows what about his tattoo, about his vain need to attract women…
‘Immaculate Woman has a key to your flat?’
‘Yeah, though she’s not supposed to use it,’ he added grimly.
‘Then why does she have one? Is it just to look after the place when you’re away, or…’ she trailed off, the unasked question clear in her eyes. Or is she another of the women you’ve been sleeping with?
‘It’s complicated, Mia.’ It was a crap answer, but now wasn’t the time to dump his past on her. Not when a big part of that past had just let herself into his flat.
Pulling the bedroom door open, he strode down the hallway to face the unwanted visitor.
Freya stood in the kitchen, and Luke almost smiled when he saw how she was, indeed, living up to Mia’s name for her. Even on a Sunday, Freya was carefully made up, her trousers neatly pressed, her top clearly designer. ‘What do you want?’
Her dark eyebrows shot up. ‘What sort of greeting is that?’
‘The sort of greeting you deserve when you use my key to enter my flat without my permission.’
But Freya wasn’t listening now. Her focus was behind Luke. ‘I see you have a guest.’
The morning had held so much promise, he thought gloomily as he remembered how he’d woken up. Now it was heading downhill faster than a bloody bobsleigh on an icy track. ‘Freya, meet Mia who lives in the flats opposite.’ He turned and met Mia’s wary blue gaze. ‘Mia, meet my neighbour.’
Freya quirked a brow at him. ‘Neighbour? Is that all I get?’
He was not ready for this conversation. Neither, it seemed, was Mia.
‘Nice to meet you.’ She gave Freya a stiff smile before turning back to him. ‘I guess I’ll see you around.’
‘Keep an eye on my window.’
He smiled but she didn’t return it. Instead her expression remained uncertain, tense, and his worry about what she was thinking intensified.
Maybe he should have told her everything, his whole history, even if it did only serve to reinforce her opinion of him as some sort of Lothario. At least then he’d know she was damning him for what he had done, rather than whatever the heck her mind had made up.
Mia walked out and once the door had closed behind her, Freya spoke. ‘Keep an eye on your window?’
‘It’s nothing to do with you, Freya. Now tell me what was so important, you had to break into my flat?’
‘I hardly broke in.’ She gave him a cool look. ‘I just thought you’d like to know Grace’s flight has landed. I’m on my way to pick her up.’
‘Great, a phone call would have done, but thanks for letting me know.’
As he saw Freya out, a little of the misery of the morning melted away.
God, how he needed a dose of Grace’s irrepressible, sunny nature right now.
Chapter Twenty-Three
As Mia unlocked the door to her flat, Stan came out of his.
‘Morning.’ His eyes ran up and down her, no doubt taking in her unbrushed hair, her creased shirt. ‘Don’t normally see you up and about this early on a Sunday.’
‘No.’ Shit, was she blushing?
Stan’s face took on a broad, shit-eating grin. ‘Well I never. You’re not up and about early, you’re coming back late.’
Damn it. ‘I stayed over at a friend’s.’ A guy she’d slept in the same bed with, but who it turns out has a woman’s name tattooed on his rib, and a neighbour – a stunningly attractive neighbour – who thought nothing of letting herself into his flat. And if that wasn’t enough, he also has a hot-as-hell body and an intensely erotic nipple piercing, all so he can attract women. Why did she keep forgetting the reasons she’d decided not to get involved with him in the first place?