“If I may be blunt?”
She liked the way his voice sounded just now. All affectation was gone, and there was no hint of patronization either. The tone conceded they were two well-matched adults. “Are you ever not blunt with me?”
“You’re dressed like the most expensive courtesan in Paris.” His intense, gray gaze held hers. “It’s a fair bet that no one would mistake you for a bluestocking.”
Her lips stretched into a too-wide smile. She should be offended by his words, but they delighted her. He’d only confirmed what she’d known for some minutes now. He was distracted by her state of dishabille.
Her fingers absently toyed with the top of her chemise, brushing against the exposed skin above her corseted breasts. Nick averted his gaze and shifted in his chair.
She leaned forward. “I really want to see that Woolly Mammoth.” The words might sound playful in the moment, but she couldn’t be more earnest.
“Be careful where you voice your wishes,” he began in a voice low and intense and utterly serious as his gaze again captured hers. “There are men who would stop at nothing to give you what you want. Men break laws, walk across flames, and even start wars to give a woman like youeverythingshe wants.”
“A woman like me?” she whispered from inside the spell he’d woven around her with his words. “A man like whom, Nick?”
The air went completely still. The world could have stopped spinning on its axis, and she wouldn’t have noticed.
“I think you’ve mastered duplicity and guile,” he spoke into the quiet before shooting to his feet and breaking the spell.
Mariana assessed the man towering over the table. He was agitated, which perversely calmed her. “You think me so without guile?”
She rose, one slow inch at a time, until they stood facing each other like combatants. His eyes remained steady, too steady, on hers. He was trying not to glance down at her scantily clad body. She liked to think she’d chosen tonight’s undergarments without him in mind, but she knew the truth.
She leaned across the table to retrieve her clothing. If he received an eyeful of the effect of gravity on corseted cleavage, then so be it. She reclined in her chair and lifted a foot, slipping her toes inside a stocking and unrolling the length of silk up her leg. His eyes lingered hot upon the bare skin of her thigh just above where the stocking ended.
She reached for the other stocking. “It feels as though we haven’t discussed anything substantive.”
“There are many ways to have a conversation,” he said, his voice rough and intimate. “Sometimes we communicate more about ourselves by what we don’t say.” A moment passed. “And in the language of our bodies.”
A lightning bolt of desire shot through Mariana. And she’d thought she was in control. Rather, intoxication, bright and pervasive, flowed through her, as if she’d downed the entire decanter of bourbon in a single swallow. Its hot glow had found its way into her bloodstream, transforming her body into a vessel incandescent with brilliant light. She lifted her other leg and touched toes to silk.
Her eyes lifted and met raw craving within his. The space between their bodies no longer mattered. “And what is my body communicating right now?”
“Mariana . . .”
The rest of his words slipped away. His eyes did his talking when they lowered to her pointed toes and raked up her ankles before lingering on her exposed thighs for a moment too long. Her core throbbed and ached. Unhurried, his gaze continued over her hips, her breasts, her collarbone, and her parted lips before reaching her eyes. Piercing gray burned into her, leaving no doubt about the message she’d communicated, and the one he’d received. Her breath came shallow and quick as exhilaration surged through her. Contrary to what she’d assumed for the past decade, Nick wasn’t immune to her.
In three decisive strides, he moved to her side of the table, erasing all distance between them. She remained in her chair, her head tilted back to take in the length of this gorgeous man—all long lines and strong angles. He reached over and lifted her necklace off the table. Its locket swung like a pendulum between them.
Her hand flew to her chest for confirmation that the locket wasn’t there. How had she forgotten it? The man before her was how.
“Do you mind?” she asked, rising to her stocking feet.Oh.Scant inches separated their bodies. The outside world felt as distant as if they’d created a world of two, its sole occupants her and him. She couldn’t look away.
~ ~ ~
Nick could have handed over the necklace. Heshouldhave handed over the necklace. Instead, he reached for the curve of Mariana’s hip and guided her around until her back faced him. He stood poised to drape the necklace around her elegant neck and allow its locket to resume its rightful place between the ripe curve of her breasts.
It was another instance of what he should have done. But a feeling too basic to deny overrode his intellect: he wanted her—badly.
Without thought for their past or their future, he lowered his head and touched his lips to her bare skin. Her back arched, and her shoulder blades slid together. His hand reached around her waist to the flat of her belly, steadying them both as his tongue flicked across her salty flesh.
“Nick . . .” His name emerged from her lips, not on a scold, but on a sigh. She was waiting, anticipating. She felt the same intense desire.
He sensed it in the stillness of her body and heard it in the hitch of her breath. His tongue traced the ridge of her spine and up her graceful neck until it reached her earlobe, drawing the tender flesh between his lips and teeth for a testing nip. Her head tilted to the side, granting him access to more of her. He released a soft groan into her ear, and goose bumps rose beneath his touch. The rigid length of his cock thrummed in anticipation of what came next.
That ridiculous bed behind them dominated this room for a reason. It wasn’t a bed constructed for a good sleep. It was a bed constructed for a good tup.
She was a single ragged breath away from giving in to this need . . . But that breath never came. Her hand covered his. At first a feather light touch, it became viselike as her fingers clamped around his hand and lifted it off her body.
