It was the jagged fray in her voice when she spoke that simple, “Yes,” that sent him over the edge and set him on a course both foolish and inevitable, possible outcomes suddenly fated.
Chapter 16
Titter-tatter: One reeling, and ready to fall at the least touch . . .
A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
Francis Grose
Would Nick let the provocation pass?
She could see by the determined set of his mouth and the narrow slit of his eyes that he was analyzing her words, deciding whether or not to respond. She may have even detected a slight flaring of his nostrils.
A tiny frisson of panic raced through her, alongside no small amount of excitement.
Gently, perhaps too gently, he placed his champagne flute on the table and stalked toward her in slow, but inevitable, increments. The South American jaguar she’d stroked earlier flashed across her mind. The jaguar was a solitary and opportunistic apex predator, the sort who was the king of his jungle. Inside the eyes of the man before her, she saw the kinship between man and jungle cat.
“You know the scene of a seduction so well?” he asked, his voice as smooth as a purr.
“Of course.”
His mouth crept wider, as if he sensed her false bravado. “A seduction,” he repeated, continuing his advance on her.
She stood her ground, unwilling to retreat backward beneath the intensity of his gaze and the steadiness of his step.
“The phrasing suggests a lack of agency on your part. I never found you wanting in that department.” A forefinger tapped his lips once, twice. “Let us analyze the elements of a seduction, shall we? We are engaged in aspy lesson, after all.”
Her mouth went dry, but she couldn’t look away. Apex predators understood averted eyes as submission. She would not submit.
“Champagne? Check.”
Even as a healthy dose of wariness braced her against his steady advance, she didn’t feel as cautious as she should. After all, this was Paris, where a sense of unreality underlay and influenced every moment. In London, this night . . . this scenario wasn’t possible.
But in Paris? Here, possibility abounded.
And in this garden?Everythingwas possible.
“Oysters? Check. I wonder”—A wicked gleam entered his eye—“has your autodidacticism extended into the realm of the sensual? Mayhap an empirical inquiry into the efficacy of aphrodisiacs?”
A curt shake of her head was all the answer she trusted herself to give as her senses awakened to anticipation. No aphrodisiac on earth was more powerful than Nick, his words . . . his voice . . . his dominant presence casting a spell of sensuality around them. It could be true thateverythingwas possible in this garden.
Perhaps she could be granted a special dispensation: one night free of her shipwreck of a marriage where she could pursue a seduction with her husband. Oh, the irony . . .
“What do you think?” he murmured.
A meager stretch of grass now separated her from him. “What do I think?” she asked, managing a raspy whisper. “This is madness.”
His gaze all but dared her to look away. “And which words shall I use for this seduction?”
“Forthisseduction?” she whispered.
He nodded once in confirmation. It was no longer a seduction in theory. It mattered not if she’d goaded him into it or if it had been his intention all long.Thisseduction was happening at this very moment. He stood not a foot away from her, the air between them thick with the undeniable reality of it. She tilted her head to hold his gaze.
“Words of love?” he asked. “Words of lust?”
Her legs threatened to give way. His hand reached out and, before she understood his intent, he flicked the cap off her head. Loose tendrils of hair tumbled about her shoulders, his eyes went as dark as the indigo sky above, and she knew: the wanting between them was mutual. He wasn’t toying with her in the way a jaguar toyed with his prey only to release it once he grew bored. Instead, his eyes suggested a different narrative: he wouldn’t release her.
To have Nick in her thrall was a feeling she was incapable of resisting. A cresting surge of audacity emboldened her to reach across the insignificant stretch of space separating their bodies. She considered caressing the back of his neck before pulling his mouth to hers. But such an action was expected . . . ordinary.
