‘Where were you thinking of going?’ she asked.
‘Where would you like?’
‘I’m easy,’ she said, and blushed a bright red.
‘My place then,’ he pressed decisively.
Her chin jerked up.
James suffered a searing stab of doubt. Had his eagerness pushed him too far too fast?
‘Your place,’ she repeated, her eyes glittering a fierce challenge over the heat in her cheeks. ‘In that case, I’ll follow you there in my car.’
And leave whenever she wanted to.
James received the message loud and clear but he wasn’t troubled by it. ‘Fine,’ he said, glancing at his watch. ‘We’ll take off in fifteen minutes or so. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ she agreed and made a fast exit from his office.
Done, James thought.
Although it wasn’t a done deed yet, he reminded himself.
It was only the first step towards doing.
No…undoing!
And he grinned.
CHAPTER NINE
HIS place!
The intimacy of the invitation had Lucy’s nerves in a riot. It felt as though the butterflies on her skirt had come alive and flocked into her stomach. If James had touched her as she accompanied him into the elevator which took them from their office floor to the basement car-park, she probably would have jerked away from him, frightened more of her own wild feelings than of him.
She stepped briskly to the rear of the compartment, leaving him to press the panel button and giving herself some space to get her mind clear and her skittish body under control. She’d wanted to step into his private life. This was her chance. Going to his place might not be very sensible, but what did she have to lose at this point?
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
And she had everything to gain.
Even if James had a sexual marathon in mind…so what? Hadn’t she fantasised this kind of experience with him? She had to exude confidence, not apprehension. Seize the day. Seize the night. Seize anything he offered. There was no going back to the old worthy Miss Worthington image. Not after the raging heat of this morning’s encounter on her office desk.
Besides, if for some reason, she decided this wasn’t what she wanted, she had her own car to leave in whenever she chose. James surely understood that. The important factors were he was no longer angry with her and she had another chance with him.
‘I don’t know how to get to your place,’ she said, doing her utmost to project a calm acceptance of this progression in their relationship. ‘I know you live in Balmain, but…’
Balmain—one of the oldest suburbs of Sydney, like Woolloomooloo, where the dockyard workers had lived in earlier times. Now it was a very up-market trendy area, close to the inner city, the old terrace houses expensively renovated, trees cultivated along the narrow sidewalks, lots of fashionable eateries and the kind of shops that invariably catered to money.
‘Just follow me in your car,’ he advised. ‘It’s easier than explaining.’
‘What if the traffic separates us?’
He smiled. ‘I’ll take very great care not to lose you, Lucy.’
It was like a warm caress all over her skin—that smile, that look in his eyes. He still wanted her. He was not going to lose her. And Lucy’s fevered mind clutched his words, nursing them as though they were a promise of more than just sex between them—a promise of continuity, of value that went beyond a fleeting physical thing.
She definitely had to go with him. Her future was hanging on this journey. When the elevator stopped and the doors opened to the basement car-park, Lucy’s legs moved automatically, compelled forward by a sense of commitment that had been seeded the moment she had decided to keep the red Alpha Spider convertible. Not the safe, sensible road. She was risking everything—everything—to have this man.
She took the car-keys out of her bag and pressed the unlocking device attached to them. James strode past her and opened the driver’s door, a courtesy she hadn’t expected. She paused, her heart drumming in her ears as her eyes searched his face for some sign of deeper feelings than desire.
‘This isn’t business, Lucy,’ he stated pointedly, interpreting her pause as some feminist stance. ‘You’re my guest.’
He was treating her like a woman in his personal life, someone to be looked after, cared for. However facile the gesture was, it made Lucy feel like a winner already. ‘Thank you,’ she purred at him and slid into the driver’s seat with as much feminine grace as she could manage.
He closed her into the car, his eyes gleaming satisfaction in her acquiescence. ‘Sit on my tail,’ he instructed, then grinned a devil-may-care challenge at her. ‘Be aggressive if anyone tries to cut in.’
She watched him swing away to his black Porsche—this man she had craved so long—and felt a fierce surge of possessive aggression. Let any woman try to cut in now that James had chosen to take up with her, and there’d be blood on the floor, including his if he proved fickle.
The drive to Balmain was something of a blur. With almost obsessive tunnel vision she saw only the black Porsche ahead of her, responding instinctively to its every move, slowing, stopping, accelerating, turning, feeling herself being irrevocably towed towards a place where her fate would be decided.
Was he taking her to a bachelor love-nest?
How many women had been there before her?
Would she become just one of a passing parade?
Stop it, she berated herself. What good was there in letting the past blight the present? James wanted her now. Nothing else mattered. She took a deep breath and muttered, ‘Just take one step at a time. Live for the moment and meet the future as it comes, Lucy Worthington.’
She tried to focus more on where they were going since she would eventually have to find her way home. As they turned down a hill out of the main stream of traffic, she caught a glimpse of the harbour. The street was narrow with housing on both sides, most of the residences being terraces or semi-detached cottages, no obvious blocks of apartments. They travelled right to the end of the road before the black Porsche led her down a steep concrete driveway to a private parking area at the back of what had to be quite a large waterfront home.
Lucy was surprised. All the single career people she knew had minimum upkeep apartments, relatively free of maintenance problems which might take up their leisure time. A house such as this seemed too much to handle for a bachelor involved in a demanding business, as well as a high-flying social life. Nevertheless, it certainly reflected the kind of financial status that impressed people and undoubtedly made him even more attractive to those who counted such things.