Twinkle of Love - Completed

Chapter 4

Richard clenched his fists recalling the moment he'd seen the news. The moment his heart froze in his chest. Her face had been splayed across the front page, 'Daughter of Singer Superstar, Knyte Starr Missing'. He had stared on shaken before his heart stopped thudding in his chest long enough for him to draw a shaky breath, and then it had all kicked into high gear. The call he'd put through to Jace demanding to know what the hell had happened had returned unfruitful. Unable to simply leave things as they were, he'd taken the first flight out seeking answers. In less than twenty-four hours, he'd been reduced to whence he started, with absolutely nothing to go on.

The investigators he'd instantly hired had turned up blank. He could not go to the authorities seeking answers simply because he had no ties to Lucy. It was a strange feeling of uselessness that had pervaded him. It was not a feeling he was used to. It was not a feeling he ever wanted to feel again. But that just made him want to hang on to Lucy for that much longer. He still trembled inwardly just thinking of all that could have gone wrong, knowing now what he did. If Lucy hadn't called? If her brother hadn't fetched her out of that grave? Lucy could have been lost to them forever. Fuck, it didn't bear thinking, all the things that could have gone wrong.

The door to his room flew open, startling him from his deep thoughts.

"I can't sleep," declared Lucy agitatedly. She began marching to and fro in his room, seemingly oblivious to his present state of undress. Richard casually resumed what he had been doing and unbuckled the belt at his waist. His eyes narrowed on her pacing form. She was still clad in the black glossy leggings and the gold tank top. And her jacket was still draped over her shoulders. She looked different with longish hair. Almost completely unlike her. He was used to her shorn locks. The brute cut was utterly feminine on her. But Lucy was graceful like that. Swanlike in her long limbs and athletic frame. She was golden all over. Amber eyes, tawny hair, and her tanned gold skin. She drew eyes everywhere she went. She always had, with her exotic beauty, how could she not? He was just surprised no one had captured her for themselves yet. Of course, a lot of that had to do with Jace warning off every interested male and those he'd missed, Richard had stepped in to warn off himself. Now he needed only to ward off one keen male. Jace Neil, her best friend, needed a reminder that this was all he would ever be to her—a best friend.

The pants followed the belt and slid over his muscular flanks and down his sinewy thighs to pool harmlessly about his bare feet. Perhaps, it was time to open her eyes to the possibility of them as a couple. To the eventuality of Lucy being his. It took only the slightest clearing of his throat to achieve his means. Her startled eyes shot to where he stood, clad in nothing but his briefs and standing by his turned-down bed. If ever there was an invitation to drop into bed with a red-hot male, this would be it. Her eyes drank him in, from his brawn in the buff to his tousled dark hair and intensely penetrating dark eyes. He had that look about him, the look of a male luring a female to bed. Seductive and alluring.

Richard narrowed his darkened gaze and rolled back his muscular shoulders before moving to pad silently, his tread predator-like, unwilling to startle the gazelle who now stood perched for flight in his room.

Fight or flight? Lucy knew flight was absolutely necessary and fight was inevitable, but she also knew that the fight was not with Richard but with her own inner voice. The voice that told her that Richard was there, hers for the taking, and take she should. Hungrily. Greedily. She flicked her tongue over the parched dryness of her lips and struggled to pick a rational thought from her mind to frame into words, and in the end her lips parted on the soft moan of his name.

Richard's eyes darkened imperceptibly as he closed in the distance between them. Lucy wavered unsteadily on her feet, unable to take a step back and unwilling to move a step forward.