Cold determination tore through the hurt and betrayal. “You won’t be seducing Villefranche tonight.”
“Won’t I?” she asked, defiance writ clear across her face and in her words.
“No.”
Villefranche wouldn’t have her. No other man would. She was his.
He unknotted his cravat.
“What are you doing?” she asked, startling forward, her eyes wide. “I’m not here for you. Didn’t you hear me?”
“Oh, I heard you.” He shrugged off his evening jacket and allowed it to drop to the floor. His fingers began on the buttons of his shirt.
In the near dark, he could see her eyes brighten, even as she dragged her feet closer to her body, effectively cutting off his view of all but her feet, shins, and luminous eyes. “It occurs to me that we haven’t yet made love in a proper bed. Not in years, anyway.”
“This isn’t about you, Nick.”
“Isn’t it?”
“It’s about what I need. And I need to break free of you.”
He took a step closer, slowly, deliberately. “You are free to leave.”
Her response was to take her bottom lip between her teeth and bite down.
“I won’t stop you.” He halted at the side of the bed, the long length of her body within reach. “You don’t want the uncertainty of a green fopling. You want a man who knows exactly what to give you and how.”
“Tastes change,” she said, a breathless hitch in her voice.
“Not those kinds.”
“What if I want to change my tastes?”
“You want what I have to offer. You always will. Mariana”—Each syllable of her name sounded an urgent and desperate plea—“let me touch you.”
“It won’t solve anything,” she whispered, her eyes at once imploring and wavering.
“Maybe not,” he said as he reached out to touch his fingers to her toes.
He bent forward and replaced his fingers with his lips. A measure of resistance drained from her body as her knees parted slightly and her eyes met his. He saw reflected there a burn of emotion mirroring his own: betrayal and anger, yes, but above all, desire, raw and unfiltered, so strong it rendered all other emotion insignificant until it was slaked.
He should stop now, he knew. He should investigate why she was so angry with him, and what had changed between this afternoon and this evening. He knew that, too. But he couldn’t.
His eyes lowered to upthrust peaks discernible beneath transparent silk before sinking ever lower to the view inches from his face: her naked quim tantalizingly visible beneath the hem of her shift. It was possibly the most erotic view of his life.
“Tell me what you want,” his voice rasped, his gaze lifting toward hers. He met a wildness there, one he’d never been able to resist. He wasn’t about to start tonight.
Her eyes shifted away, as if weighing her words, before returning to him, resolve in their depths. “Lick me,” she exhaled, “all the way up until I say stop.”
Without hesitation, he touched his tongue to the delicate arch of her foot and trailed it over ankle, up long leg, over bent knee to dewy, inner thigh. Her intoxicating, female scent had just reached him when he heard the word, “Stop.”
He obeyed, even as his swollen cock throbbed in protest. His eyes locked onto hers, but his focus remained on her bare quim, inches from his mouth. Wet and ready for him. She must feel every exhale of his breath across her sensitive flesh.
Audacity brightening her eyes, she brought her forefinger to her parted lips and licked it. Through the valley between her breasts, down her soft, flat belly, ever lower it trailed. “Now I want you to”—Her resolute finger slid to the glistening nub of her sex—“watch.”
As if he had a choice.
Slowly, her finger began to move, sliding down, then up, over the sensitive flesh, pink and swollen with desire. A moan sounded from deep within her throat. How easily his tongue could join her finger and double her pleasure. He shifted to the side and reached down to unbutton his trousers, intent on easing his aching cock.
