“Has he spotted you?”
“Not yet.” Her eyes locked onto Villefranche’s tall, wooden form as he navigated the room between various groupings of people with whom he was clearly acquainted. “I do believe you’ve underestimated your opponent.”
“Is he behind me?”
“Directly.”
“Look at me,” Nick commanded.
Mariana tore her gaze away from the Comte de Villefranche and found Nick’s steely gray eyes. He reached out and cupped the back of her head, his long fingers threading through her loose hair, fingers warm and capable and distractingly male.
“Follow my lead,” he said for the second time tonight.
Without another word, he pulled her into him, and his mouth was upon hers in what only outwardly could be characterized as a kiss, so cold and unyielding were his lips.
It lasted no more than a thrice of seconds before she broke away, panting. “I thought we were better at kissing than that,” burst from her.
“Has he passed?” Nick asked, refusing to be distracted by their utterly, utterly terrible kiss.
Mariana had never felt so disappointed in her life.
But she remembered her role and located Villefranche’s receding back. “He’s just stepping outside through the front entrance”—Bemusement crinkled her eyebrows together—“with a woman. I guess his high ideals take a roll down in the hay every once in a while.”
Nick pushed away from the table and stood, dragging her up with him. Without a singleadieu, they were off, navigating the haphazard café at a pace surely never seen in its loose environ. Her flimsy scrap of a shawl slipped off her shoulders, forgotten forever to the night as there was no stopping Nick’s forward momentum. And all of this done without a single disturbance to the firm set of his features.
In a thrice, they were speeding down a short, back corridor. Nick’s hand still clamped around hers, he used the other to push open the door at the corridor’s end.
Two strides later, Mariana found herself in a narrow, dark alley devoid of light and dense with soft, feathery mist. Even as the uneven rhythms of her breath raced in her ears, the world slowed, and stillness enveloped them. The raucous café faded into a past that was becoming increasingly distant, even as the absinthe pulsed lightning flashes through her veins. Only the present where his hand held hers mattered.
“Are we following Villefranche?”
Nick shook his head, a wild light flickering in the gray depths of his eyes. Through the fog of their shared past came the memory that his wildness had always driven her equally wild for him.
“You thought we were better than that?” he asked on a step forward. Inches separated them. His hand held onto hers as the other reached up and stroked the side of her face. His fingers felt wonderfully cool against her cheeks, hot with inebriation and . . . desire.
She opened her mouth to speak, but words refused to form. There was nothing left to say. Only something left to do. Her hand reached up, found the back of his neck, and pulled his mouth toward hers.
A soft growl sounded as his lips claimed hers with a pent-up ferocity that had been vibrating between them for three straight nights. A kiss never felt so good, so ravishing, so hedonistic, soright. No, it wasn’t right. Yet somehow its verywrongnessmade it all the better.
The full, unforgiving length of his body pressed forward and pinned her against the damp, stone wall. Her eyes fluttered shut, and all she could do wasfeelthe contrasting sensations of pleasure and pain swirling together. Her entire being transformed into a bundle of exposed nerve endings whose only function was to give and receive pleasure. What else was there?
His fingertips trailed down her neck, across her clavicle, and hesitated at the swell of her breasts. A plaintive cry erupted in her throat, and her back arched, pressing her further into his body. She wanted more than a kiss.
One hand cupped her bottom, pulling her into full, erotic contact with his erect shaft, the other slipped inside her bodice and lifted a breast out of the confining fabric before squeezing her taut peak between thumb and forefinger. Instinctively, her leg wrapped around his waist as his manhood ground into her. Her body alternately screamed and ached for more . . . for everything.
Drat these layers of clothes between them.
He broke the kiss and took her breast into his mouth. Her head arced back, and a long moan escaped her.
“Wearebetter than that,” he murmured, his hand snaking up her bare thigh. “Do you require additional proof?”
“Yes,” she exhaled, a plea to the heavens above.
The heavens ignored her entreaty, for the next moment, Nick went stock still and pressed a staying finger against her lips before she could cry out in protest. She followed his gaze and found what had caught his attention. A gendarme stood, not five feet away, patiently awaiting their attention.
Mariana knew she should feel absolutely mortified, face flaming with embarrassment and shame. But she felt not a bit of it. She’d only just coaxed Nick into lowering his defenses and revealing something true about himself—that he desired her . . . madly, wildly—and this officer of the silly law had come along and denied her. She didn’t feel ashamed; she felt thwarted.
The gendarme motioned for Nick to step aside with him. “Monsieur, s’il vous plait?”
