The Secrets of Seduction - Elizabeth Lennox Page 0,16

blouse she was wearing. One by one. His eyes gazing at her fingers, waiting for every inch of skin revealed by her slow strip tease.

“Yes,” he whispered hungrily.

“Do not kiss me here,” she whispered forcefully. She didn’t know what his favorite color was, or his favorite food. She knew what kind of car he drove, but not if he was a fast or cautious driver.

But Ella knew that look in his eyes. She’d seen it several times already and her heart accelerated, her stomach tightened. Anticipation, she thought. This was what it felt like.

“Where would you want me to kiss you?” he asked.

His words were so enticing, her tongue darted out, wetting her lips in anticipation of his kiss. She wanted that kiss! She wanted it more than she wanted to inhale again.

He lifted his hand, trailing a finger down her neck to her collar bone. “Here?” he asked softly. Had he just moved closer? Ella wasn’t sure, too focused on that finger tracing a line along her skin. He actually pushed the material of her denim shirt out of the way, giving his finger more room. “Or maybe here?”

Ella realized that she was holding her breath. It was only the painful burn in her lungs that gave her the strength to inhale. Thankfully, the breath called to mind so many other things and she stepped back, shaking her head. “You’re going to get us arrested,” she muttered, looking away and putting the black lace bra back on the circular rack. She moved to the next rack, not wanting him to know that she’d been looking at bras. Which was absolutely stupid since he’d literally caught her looking at them, lifting them up to the light. Her only solace was that he didn’t know what she’d been thinking in terms of the sheerness of the bra.

“Here,” he said, handing her the black, lace bra that she’d just rejected. “I’ll be able to see your nipples through this one.” He pushed several more pieces out of the way. “I might not even need to take it off. I imagine that I’d be able to taste you through the material.”

There was an odd sound after his comment and Ella was terrified that she’d just groaned. Images of him teasing her nipples through the sheer material of the bra caused her fingers to clench around the hanger. “We can’t do this here,” she whispered, needing to get away from him before she jumped him in the middle of the stupid circular racks. Crazily, her next thought was that, if they’d been straight, they might have hidden her ravenous attack more thoroughly.

“You’re a C cup, right?’ he asked. He was sorting through the bras and panties with an expertise that should have horrified her, but actually, it intrigued her. How experienced was he in selecting ladies lingerie? And why did his perceived expertise give her a stab of jealousy? It was silly to be jealous of his past lovers. Especially since she was still trying not to become one of his future lovers. Although, she wasn’t doing a particularly good job of that. The past two times she’d been in his arms, her only consolation had been thinking of him being led away in handcuffs as her salvation from falling into his bed.

And even that image had been painful. Ella really wasn’t thinking properly. She needed to force her thoughts back into this investigation and get it done before she made a colossal mistake.

He walked over to her and she might have laughed when he held a pair of pretty lace panties up against her butt. “What are you doing?” she hissed, shifting away from him.

“You’re a size ten?” he asked, tilting his head from one side to the other, assessing her bottom.

“Yes!” she said, and turned away so that he couldn’t see her butt. “Sometimes!” Her weight shifted a lot, depending on what she was doing. She could go down a size when she was out in the field, but when she came home, she devoured convenient, unhealthy foods and went up a size. That didn’t mean she wanted him to know that though.

“You’ve got a great figure, Ella. Why hide it?”

“I don’t hide it,” she snapped, moving so that one of the racks hid her derriere. “There’s a difference between hiding it from the world and hiding one’s butt from a guy trying to size her up for lingerie purposes.”

He didn’t respond, but instead, moved back to the original rack and started