He pursed his lips. She spoke as though she was very experienced in what happened here. That implied she might be a lightskirt, though he couldn’t believe that was true. There was an innocence about this woman. Her very proper accent and her careful choice of words saidladyto him. Perhaps she was a bored wife or a wild heiress.
“I suppose this Rivers fellow must keep rules in place or risk no ladies coming at all for fear of being accosted,” he continued. In truth, he didn’t really care about the club, for he had no intention of joining. But he didn’t want to step away, and that meant he had to keep talking.
She was watching him, her gaze unreadable. “Does that mean you are a new member, sir?”
“I came with my friends,” he said, motioning toward the door. When he turned he found that Robert was gone and Hugh stood talking to a curvy redhead who seemed very focused on tracing the line of his jaw with her fingernail.
He cleared his throat. “Apparently they have found their desires, though.”
“And what about you?” she asked. “What is your desire?”
He swallowed. “Well…”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me. That was a terribly forward question and I shouldn’t have asked it. I-I—”
She looked ready to run and he reached out to gently touch her arm. “I suppose under normal circumstances it would not be proper, but here…well, isn’t that whathereis all about?”
She licked her lips and he watched her pink tongue move. How long had it been since he felt someone’s mouth on him? Someone’s hands on him? Too long, if the first possibility made desire spike so high in him.
“I suppose you’re right,” she whispered, her gaze darting out into the rowdy, writhing crowd.
All around them people were doing such wicked things, Matthew hardly knew where to look. So he followed her stare to the dancefloor. There some couples were dancing to the music like in any ball. Others ground together in a public display of desire…foreplay.
“Would you like to dance?” he found himself asking.
She gasped and her gaze returned to him. “Dance?” she repeated.
“Not…not like that,” he said, shuddering as one couple began to kiss passionately. “Just dance.”
She hesitated, but then she slowly nodded. “Very well. I would be pleased to dance with you.”
The words were more impactful than he wished them to be. His head spun and he took a few seconds to gather himself before he held out a hand to her. Neither was wearing gloves—this wasn’t the kind of establishment where such propriety would be expected or wanted. She looked up at him, those eyes of hers wide and dark. Her fingers trembled as she set them in his palm, and he realized in that moment that she was just as set on her heels by whatever electricity crackled between them as he was.
Somehow that didn’t help.
He drew in a few deep breaths as he guided her through the crowd and onto the dancefloor just as the orchestra began the next song. It was slow, a waltz meant to force its participants into each other’s arms. Matthew had not danced a waltz in years. It was once Angelica’s favorite, so he hadn’t the heart.
Now he began to move in time to the music, guiding the lovely stranger in his arms in a circle around the floor and wondering what the hell he had gotten himself into.
Isabel couldn’t breathe as her protector danced with her with such grace. His hand was warm in hers, rough; the other pressed against her hip and made her very aware of the fact that she wore no undergarments beneath her clothing. Just a thin scrap of silk separating his skin from hers, his desire from hers.
The room was spinning, and not just because of the waltz. She had come here before and just watched, but now she was swept up in the rhythm of the dance, in the sexual intensity that crackled all around them. In the man who held her so close and stared down into her eyes like she was the only woman in the room.
She didn’t know what exactly was happening, but it was hypnotic and powerful, and she didn’t want it to end.
“Why are you here?” he whispered, almost to himself more than to her.
She blinked, the question breaking through the hazy fog that had settled around them. “Why is anyone here?” she retorted.
He frowned and his gaze darted around them. “For sin. Did you come here for sin?”
She swallowed and then found herself jerking out a nod. “I suppose I did. I’m not supposed to see what I see here, not supposed to feel how I feel. And yet I…I…”
She broke off and lost her footing a fraction. He steadied her by tightening his fingers on her hip, and yet that did nothing to ground her. Her body just felt like it caught on fire, her legs trembling and the apex of her thighs throbbing.
She’d felt like this before, of course. Long ago in her marriage, and now in her bed alone after nights here when she brought herself to completion.
But never so intensely.
