One Night On The Virgin's Terms - Melanie Milburne Page 0,9

times he’d taken a woman out to dinner, so there was no reason why this time he should be feeling as if this date was something special.

Date? Is that what this is?

No. It. Was. Not. He hadn’t committed to anything. One part of him was determined to talk Ivy out of her plan to have him initiate her into the joy of sex, the other part of him was mentally stockpiling condoms and scented candles. What had got into him? Where were his set-in-stone boundaries?

Louis adjusted his tie and then pressed the doorbell on Ivy’s flat. The sound of heels click-clacking on floorboards sent his pulse up. Was it his imagination or could he already smell her perfume? The door opened and Ivy stood there in a little black dress that clung to every delicious curve on her body, the vertiginous heels she was wearing showcasing her slim legs and ankles. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, and his fingers itched so much to reach out and touch it, he had to shove his hands into his trouser pockets.

‘Hiya.’ Her lips curved around a smile and desire coiled hot and tight in his groin. Her smoky eye make-up made her periwinkle-blue eyes look all the more stunning, and her shimmering lip-gloss highlighted the perfect shape of her mouth. Her utterly kissable, sexy-as-hell mouth. Heaven help him.

‘Good evening.’ Louis stretched his mouth into one of his carefully rationed smiles. ‘You look amazing.’

Amazing, sexy, gorgeous, stunning, beautiful... The words piled into his brain as if he had swallowed a thesaurus. She didn’t look like his friend’s sister any more, which was a problem, because he needed to get those boundaries firmly back in place. And fast.

‘Thank you.’

There was a funny little silence.

‘Right. Well, then.’ Louis took his hands out of his pockets and gestured towards the street where his car was parked. ‘Shall we go?’

Ivy stepped down the three steps to the footpath but almost stumbled on the last one and Louis shot out one of his hands to stabilise her. ‘Whoa, there. Take it easy in those shoes. How on earth do you walk in them?’ His fingers moved from grasping her wrist to curl around hers and another punch of lust hit him in the groin.

‘I like wearing heels. It makes me taller. Otherwise I’d end up with neckache trying to look up at people all the time, particularly people as tall as you.’

He kept hold of her hand on the way to his car. Her fingers were soft as silk and her hand so small it was completely swallowed up by his. ‘I’ll have to get you a stepladder or something when you’re with me. I don’t want you to break your ankle on my behalf.’

She gave a tinkling-bell laugh and playfully shoulder bumped him. ‘Don’t be silly. So, where are we having dinner? I’m starving.’

‘A French restaurant.’

She grinned up at him. ‘So you can dazzle me with your fluent French?’

‘Something like that.’ Louis was the one being dazzled. Big time. He knew he was crazy even to take her out to dinner, let alone contemplate anything else. She was exactly the type of girl he avoided—the type who wanted the husband, the house and the sleepy hound in front of the cosy fireplace. He’d missed out on the settling-down gene, or had had it pummelled out of him through witnessing the marital misery of his parents. These days the sense of claustrophobia at being in a relationship longer than twenty-four hours was suffocating. He enjoyed sex for the physical relief it gave but, since his stalker, the thought of a longer relationship made him break out into hives.

In his opinion, long-term commitment was a dirty word.

Louis helped her into the passenger seat and tried not to notice how her black dress revealed a tiny shadow of cleavage and a whole lot of her shapely thighs. Tried to ignore the way his pulse shot up and his blood thickened.

He strode to the driver’s side and gave himself a stern talking to.

It’s just dinner. Nothing else. You’re going to talk her out of her crazy plan, remember?

‘Louis?’

He flicked her a quick glance as the engine turned over. ‘Yes?’

Her fingers were fiddling with the clasp on her evening bag, her cheeks a faint shade of pink. ‘Do you carry condoms with you all the time?’

He stared blankly at her for a moment. ‘Ah, well, yes, but we’re not going to need them tonight.’

‘But why not?’

His hands gripped the steering wheel