Once A Bad Girl by Jane O'Reilly

don’t wear them outside your flat.’
    She shrugged, gave up the fight with the zip, and slowly turned to face him. ‘I don’t see how this is any of your business.’
    She looked, he thought suddenly, tired. Dark circles he hadn’t noticed before ringed those pretty eyes, and her skin had the pale tinge of someone who spent far too much time cooped up indoors. He wanted to scoop her up and carry her back to his house, set her up in a deckchair in the garden and ply her with fruit, but that was not going to happen. Instead, he rummaged in the wardrobe again. And there it was. ‘Put this on. I’ll wait next door while you get ready.’
    Lottie pushed the bedroom door closed, leaned back against it and closed her eyes. She pushed her knuckles against her mouth and held in the scream.
    She shouldn’t have given him her address. She shouldn’t have agreed to let him pick her up. She should have caught the bus to Leicester Square, met up with him there, where there was plenty of space and he wouldn’t have to stand so close, stealing all the oxygen inside her tiny flat. It might be cheap to heat and easy to clean, but the downside was that it made him look even bigger, even more imposing.
    And the suit. Dear lord, the suit. It was like James Bond had walked through her front door. Her insides were jelly, heat liquefying in her stomach just at the thought of all that tanned, taut muscle packed inside that gorgeous combination of jet black and bright, snowy white. She wanted to wrap herself around him, put her tongue in his mouth and never leave the flat again.
    But that wouldn’t save the auction house. She’d made her deal with the devil, and now she had to honour it. Goosebumps rose up on her flesh as she wiggled her way out of the black dress and put it back neatly in the wardrobe, then turned to see what he’d picked out.
    Her heart jumped into her mouth. Was he serious? She stood in her underwear and stared at it for a moment, clutching protectively at her bra.
    A gentle knock sounded at the door, and she whirled round. ‘What?’
    ‘Do you need any help getting dressed?’
    ‘No! Shove off!’
    A low, wicked chuckle made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. ‘If you’re not ready in five minutes, Lottie, I’m going to come in and dress you myself. And don’t even think about picking out something else.’
    ‘Big bully!’
    He was right. They did need to talk. She would start by helping him with his understanding of the word ‘no’.
    Before she could lose her nerve, she whipped off her bra and manoeuvred herself into the clinging acid-yellow dress. With sleeves to the wrists and skirt to the floor, it flirted with demure. With razor-sharp slashes across her back, her décolletage, her thighs, it committed to outrageous. Surely he’d take one look and agree it was totally unsuitable. Then she’d slip back into her black silk ruffles, and they could get on with their evening.
    Decision made, Lottie picked out glittery silver heels then stormed out of the bedroom, swinging them like a weapon.
    Josh sat on her sofa, taking up far too much space and looking far too gorgeous for comfort. He blew out a low, slow whistle, set the book he’d been thumbing through back on the shelf. ‘Now that’s more like it.’
    Her mouth went dry as his gaze travelled south, stopping unashamedly on the swell of her unsupported breasts.
    An image of him teasing a taut nipple with his mouth flashed into her mind and nearly derailed her, and she knew from the way his eyes had gone dark that he was thinking exactly the same thing. ‘You said we needed to talk. So talk.’
    ‘Later. We need to get going.’
    ‘What’s wrong with being fashionably late?’ Lottie plonked herself down on one arm of the sofa and set about tucking her feet into her shoes, trying not to make it obvious that the ugly sisters had more chance of fitting into the glass slipper.
    ‘Fashionably late implies that you had something more