Free The Paris Assignment by Addison Fox Page B

was that knowledge that had her pulling away, pressing against his shoulders as she slid from his embrace.
    “Abby?”
    Despite their brief acquaintance, she’d seen many facets of Campbell Steele, but nothing prepared her for the raw, naked need that rode his features into harsh, craggy lines. The vivid blue of his eyes had darkened in the heat of passion and thick cords roped his neck as he stared at her.
    Feminine power filled her at the proof she’d drawn such a response and the urge to walk right back into his arms and see where the moment took her—took both of them—was nearly her undoing.
    A flash of light lit up the hallway through the foyer windows and pulled her attention from his face. His gaze followed hers to the door as they both realized it was only a car driving down the street, but the brief interruption was enough to break the moment.
    She pointed toward the stairs. “Let me go up and make sure a guest room’s ready for you. You’re welcome to help yourself to anything in the kitchen, just there down the hall. The finger food at the benefit wouldn’t tide over a toddler. I’ll come back down and join you in a bit.”
    He opened his mouth, then closed it again, before he simply nodded. “Thanks.”
    Abby slipped his jacket off and handed it to him, then gathered up her clutch and shawl. She fought the urge to turn back and look at him, fear lighting her heels and pushing her onward up the stairs.
    If she looked at him, the need to go back into his arms might be too overpowering to resist a second time.
    * * *
    Lucas Brown reviewed the agenda for Abigail McBane’s upcoming board meeting as the early morning London rain pattered outside his study windows. A sense of satisfaction welled in his veins and he reached for the aged Scotch at his elbow, allowing himself a second glass in celebration.
    He was a man of refined tastes. Tastes he also knew how to manage, control and keep in check.
    Sloppy men got drunk and careless men let their urges get the better of them.
    He was neither.
    Like that asshole he’d hired years ago to harass Abby in the London office. The man had taken his instructions to heart, becoming obsessed with the woman he was only meant to scare and Lucas had been forced to eliminate him.
    From that moment on, he’d resolved to deal with Abby on his own. He could hire muscle, like the thug in New York, but the real work was his to handle. So he’d begun his campaign, planning and plotting, working tirelessly toward his goal.
    And the past month had been the beginning of his reward.
    The seven-minute lockdown on her system had gone according to plan, the information he’d painstakingly accumulated over the years all falling into place as he dug into the McBane systems, a ghost in the trillions upon trillions of bytes of data.
    For seven glorious minutes, he’d played God with eighteen satellites orbiting the Earth and no one could find him.
    As Lucas finished the last sip of the rich whiskey, he stared at the rain beating against the windows as the gray of early morning broke over London.
    Today he’d take the next step.
    * * *
    Abby slipped from her dress and tried to hang it on its padded hanger, not all that surprised when her hands shook. That kiss had scrambled more than a few brain cells, but it was the shaky need that still coursed through her system that had her dropping to the small stool she kept in her closet.
    The man did things to her. That was all there was to it. If she could look at it objectively—a straight case of sexual attraction—she’d be fine.
    She would be fine.
    She had to be fine.
    “Get a grip, girl.” The whispered admonishment did little except make her feel stupid for talking to herself in the middle of her closet.
    Her gaze caught on a pair of yoga pants and discarded T-shirt on her shelf reserved for workout clothes and she snatched at them like they were a life preserver and she were drowning. Baggy and semi-unflattering, the clothes would