Kate Walker - Hers For A Night

And he was absolutely perfect for what she wanted. He was all male, a modern day macho hero to his fingertips, and a self-made man as well. Oh, yes, her father would love Lucas Mallory.

‘Any more? Would anyone like to raise.?’

Coming back to reality with a sense of shock, Georgia realised that she had been preoccupied for far longer than she had imagined. Already the bidding had slowed, the price having reached a total at which most of the interested parties had had to drop out. It was time to make a move.

‘Going once.going twice.’

Georgia raised her hand. Her action caused a buzz of interest from the audience, who had believed the sale to be almost over.

‘And a hundred,’ she said firmly.

For a couple of minutes she had a battle on her hands. One determined woman on the other side of the room matched each increase she made, but then, reluctantly, she had to drop out, shaking her head regretfully.

‘Sold!’ The gavel came down on the table with a bang. ‘Sold to Georgia Harding—you lucky thing! Please see Emily to pay, Georgie.’

Smiling to herself in satisfaction, Georgia got to her feet just as Lucas Mallory’s dark eyes scanned the room, seeking out the person who had finally bought twenty-four hours of his time. As that alert, intent gaze rested on her for a moment some uncharacteristic imp of mischief urged her into action. Picking up her wine glass, she raised it in a mocking toast.

But the teasing gesture rebounded on her with a vengeance a moment later as the dark, sleek head inclined in sardonic acknowledgement of her salute. In the same instant, she saw the black eyes slide deliberately from the top of her shining red-gold head and down over her body to the smart Italian sandals whose slender, twoinch heels took her height to an impressive near six feet.

The coolly insolent survey was so blatantly sensual that she felt irritation prickle over her skin, a spark of anger flashing in her changeable eyes. From his behaviour, anyone would have thought that she was the slave and Lucas Mallory her lordly purchaser.

For a brief moment, gripped by blind fury, she was strongly tempted to declare that she had changed her mind. Let someone else put up with this man’s arrogant assumption that any female must be putty in his hands!

But then common sense reasserted itself. After all, he was perfect, and once she had handed over her money he would be hers for the twenty-four hours that she needed him. After that, she would be only too pleased to see the back of him.

She was at the treasurer’s table, signing her cheque with a firm, decisive hand, when some change in the atmosphere around her, an intuitive shiver of awareness over her skin, alerted her. She just had time to draw a deep, calming breath before the man who had come up behind her spoke.

‘Miss Harding?’

It was a very attractive voice, low and pleasant. There was nothing in it to disturb her, but all the same she felt the tiny hairs at the nape of her neck lift in nervous response. Slowly she turned to face him, switching on a smile that was pure politeness, with no real warmth in it at all.

‘Yes?’

Those eyes weren’t actually black, she realised, seeing them properly for the first time. Instead, they were the deepest grey she had ever seen, dark and spectacular, like the rest of him. Her mind registered his impressive height and powerful build with an almost shocking force that rocked her mental balance, driving away the stern warnings Kelly had given her when she had told her friend what she had planned.

‘I’m Lucas Mallory.’

Close up, the impact of that smile was even more lethal than it had been earlier. Then, its dazzling brilliance had been diluted by the distance between her seat and his position on the catwalk, but now there was no such safety device to weaken its power.

The hand he held out to her was lean and brown, its grip around her fingers disturbingly warm and strong.

Dear God, she was beginning to understand just how Kelly had felt, Georgia thought. Her head was swimming as she fought against the stunning sensual response that seared through her whole body. It was as if she had put her hand onto a live electric wire and been badly burned as a result.

She had to get a grip on herself! This was not at all how she had planned things would go.

‘I know exactly who you are, Mr Mallory.’

The struggle to regain control of her wayward emotions made her voice even colder than she had planned, and she had to force herself to ease her hand gently from his grasp, fighting the impulse to snatch it away in panic.

‘After all, I have just bought you.’

The dark eyes followed her gesture towards the cheque that now lay, fully signed, on the table beside a receipt for her donation. But when they swung back to her face she caught a disturbing gleam in their darkness.

‘So the deal’s been finalised—signed and sealed. I’m at your mercy. Yours to do with as you please.’

‘Oh, really, Mr Mallory! Don’t you think that’s something of an exaggeration?’

Georgia’s voice came and went embarrassingly, affected by the sudden, shockingly vivid image that slid into her mind. The thought of this powerful, intensely virile man at her mercy sent a shiver of reaction nmning down her spine.

‘Not at all. When I agreed to take part in this auction, I knew that I’d end up as someone’s “slave” at the end of it. I was well aware of the fact that once you’d paid there would be no getting out of it’

‘And would you want to get out of it? Is that what you’re trying to say?’

‘No way!’

All amusement had faded from those amazing eyes. Their dark intensity held her gaze transfixed, as if he was a powerful magnet and she the finest of needles, inevitably drawn to him.

‘That thought never crossed my mind. I agreed to help, and I have no intention of going back on my word.’

His apparent sincerity was unexpected, making her wonder just why this particular charity was so important to him. Somehow she didn’t connect Lucas Mallory, former Grand Prix champion and now wealthy businessman, with a fund to help premature babies. She might have expected he would give a donation, perhaps, but not this active participation.

But she didn’t get a chance to question him about it, because the next moment that surprising seriousness had vanished from his eyes and the vivid smile was switched on once more.

‘So now it’s up to you. All you have to do is to tell me what you want from me, and I’m at your service. Believe me, it will be nothing but a pleasure to fulfil the desires of such a lovely lady.’

The man flirted as instinctively as he breathed! And in a way he had just given her some sort of explanation for his apparently charitable actions. After all, the whole point of this evening was that only the women present were allowed to bid for the male ‘slaves’.

There was little doubt in Georgia’s mind that Lucas,

whose sobriquet ‘the fastest man on the track’ didn’t just refer to his racing exploits, had seen that he could turn this auction to his own advantage if the opportunity arose. And if it didn’t arise naturally, then he would make sure it happened otherwise.

But not with this particular woman! If he thought that that amazing smile would have her melting helplessly at his feet, then he couldn’t have been more wrong. If anything, it had the opposite effect, stiffening her spine and making her lift her chin in determined challenge. Kelly’s face was clear in her mind, like some sort of mental shield with which to deflect the force of his practised charrn.

‘What I want is for you to stop flirting with me! This is a strictly business arrangement, and I’d prefer it if you kept it that way.’

Now she’d disconcerted him. She could see it in the way his face changed, all warmth fading from it. She could almost sense the swift adjustment in his thoughts as, mentally at least, he took a couple of steps away from her.

He hadn’t expected that response, and it was obvious that he didn’t like it. Clearly it rocked his macho pride to come up against a woman who was immune to his formerly infallible technique.

Tell me,’ Lucas Mallory murmured, in a tone that was so soft, so deceptively warm that for a moment she missed the warning in the tightness of the muscles around the strong jaw, ‘are you usually this prickly with everyone or is this strictly personal?’

‘I am not prickly!’

‘No? Well, in that case I’d hate to meet you when you’re in a bad mood.’

‘My mood is my own business! And if it’s not exactly welcoming, then perhaps you should remember that

you’re the one who imposed his company on me. I didn’t invite you to join me!’

‘Look, lady, I simply came over to introduce myself and find out what you wanted from me in return for your generous donation. I didn’t know I had to wait for a formal introduction. After all, you’re the one who made the first move by bidding for me. I had no intention of imposing on you in any way.’

Georgia flinched away from the lash of his sarcasm, knowing she had no defence against it. She was painfully aware of the possibility that, if she wasn’t very careful, she could risk raining all her plans by alienating him right from the start.

‘Perhaps we’d better begin again.’

To her relief, Lucas followed her lead easily enough.

‘Why don’t I get us both a drink and then we can sit down and talk about it?’

‘Fine. My table’s over there.’

She had to forget how much she disliked men of Lucas Mallory’s type, Georgia told herself firmly as she watched him make his way to the bar. After all, it was precisely because he had that sort of confident, macho lady-killer character that she had chosen him for this scheme in the first place.

She wasn’t the only one who was watching, she noted. Even in the most crowded room, his imposing height and lean strength would mean that many eyes would be drawn to him. The forceful cast of his features under the silky dark hair inevitably made him the centre of much female attention.

But it wasn’t just the female members of the audience who had turned their heads in Lucas’s direction. The aura of confidence and complete self-assurance that seemed to emanate from him so easily made him an object of interest to men too. That interest was touched with a degree of envy, even from the few who were unaware of the full extent of his reputation and success. He would be a perfect match for her father in all ways.

‘Fiver for them,’ Lucas said quietly, making her jump as he placed two wine glasses on the table in front of her. She had watched him walk towards her, and yet now he seemed suddenly disturbingly close, towering over her in a way that she found slightly disturbing.

‘I thought a penny was the usual rate,’ she retorted, and saw his firm mouth curl up at the corners.

‘In the everyday world, perhaps. But at this exclusive gathering I reckon the price must be commensurate with the exorbitant rates they charged for the tickets and the meal, so I worked on a five hundred percent increase.’

‘That seems about right,’ Georgia laughed. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

He didn’t answer in words but simply leaned forward and traced the outline of her curved upper lip with a gentle fingertip.

‘Don’t!’

Her head jerked back violently, as if the soft touch had been the burn of white-hot metal. Lucas, however, seemed unconcerned by the hostility of her response.

‘You should smile more often, it changes your face completely,’ he murmured. Then, as she deliberately clamped her mouth tight shut, erasing all traces of her earlier warmth, he pulled out the chair opposite and sat down, reaching for his wine glass. ‘So what were you thinking about?’