“You don’t need to do that, you know?” Angus said.

“What’s that?”

“Be my cheerleader. I’m a big boy. I can take a hit.”

“Yeah, you are,” she said. “Such a big boy.”

A slow smile spread across his face, even as his eyes narrowed. Even though he’d known more success than most men saw in a lifetime, that hunger still remained. It was a part of him. And when he switched it on, it always made Lucinda burn.

Then his gaze began to roam. Over her hair, over her cheeks, her jaw, pausing once more on her mouth, before traveling down the twist of a spaghetti strap, over the crisscross at her décolletage, her bare shoulders.

Lucinda’s heart picked up pace and the hairs at the back of her neck prickled.

He shouldn’t be looking at her that way.

And she shouldn’t be relishing the fact that he was.