He smiled with quiet confidence. “Soon.”
Portia again tried to escape but his grip tightened. She flung herself back, her arm over her eyes and sought complete control over her body. His clever fingers were having an effect, though. If he carried on this way he might make his words true.
He raised her leg a little and kissed her toes as he began to massage the oil into her heel, then up the sensitive tendon to her calf. He kissed his way to her instep, and her eyes drifted shut at the sweetness of it…but then she forced them open.
She would not give him any reaction. Not a trace.
Then the wetness of his tongue traveled along her foot and his teasing fingers reached the back of her knee.
She squirmed.
No, she wouldn’t!
But it was not just her foot and knee. Though he was not touching anywhere else, other parts of her body were heating, vibrating, desiring….
How could her body betray her so?
“How beautiful are thy feet,”he said, and it sounded like a quotation. “Delicate, arched, sensitive. Like the rest of you.” He was using his deep voice to cast a spell on her. “Sensitive, all of you, arching to my touch…”
Portia arched before she knew it. She sucked in a breath and prayed for strength.
He shifted and she was relieved, but it was only to begin the same onslaught on her other foot.
“Your limbs are slender but strong,” he murmured. “Your skin is smooth as finest Chinese silk. When I stroke the silk you feel it everywhere, even in your most secret places. Places where you ache to be touched. You are supple as a willow, graceful as a doe as you move in your desire. Fighting with you, little warrior, was pure pleasure. Victory and sweet surrender will be heaven on earth. For both of us…”
Touch, perfume, voice, words—they were gradually melting Portia’s bones, her muscles, and her resistance. She tried to remind herself that this was all clever tricks and acting, but even so, she ached, she moved.
His hand slid firmly up her calf and down again, and she took a sobbing breath. He rolled her onto her front and stroked the back of her legs, light behind the knees, harder on the calves but always over her skirts, never under.
Portia buried her head in her hands and tried to remember why it was so important to both deny that this was pleasant, and pretend that this was pleasant.
His hands moved up, over her buttocks, and onto the small of her back, to massage there with deep strength.
“You can feel it into the bones and beyond, can’t you, little cat? Stretch like a cat. Purr for me….”
And Portia did stretch—she couldn’t help it—but she stopped herself from purring. “Enough!” she gasped. “My lord, please…”
“Not yet, not quite yet, but almost, yes?”
He turned her again in a tangle of black hair and skirts and his clever hands brushed her breasts.
Portia wriggled away at that, but even as she did so, her body moved in a way of its own, and he laughed. “Yes, your body wants me, but do you?”
Thinking only of their personal wager, Portia cried, “No!”
He pulled a face at her, and then she didn’t know the truth.Washe trying to seduce her, or was this all pure acting? If anything, that made it worse. Here she was, wax melting to a puddle in his hands, and he still had his wits about him.
Well, she could keep her wits, too. She draped her arms around his naked shoulders. “Oh, my lord, I lied. I want you. Take me! But if you do,” she muttered into his ear, “I swear I will kill you.”
“Trust me,” he whispered and twisted her for a kiss.
It was a kiss such as she had never imagined—an assault on her senses and her will involving far more than their mouths. His naked arms held her close, and her arms and hands had only his skin to contact—silky skin, warm over muscle and bone. Portia had never before experienced so much body.
The sultry perfume was all over both of them, blending with the smell of his skin and the taste of his mouth so that she couldn’t cling on to sanity.
She was on her back now, with him on top—heavy, hot. He was touching her breasts and creating a mad yearning.
She couldn’t remember why this was wrong, why they shouldn’t…
