Still, those old habits died hard. Politeness, propriety, protection. If she took that hand, everything would change. There was a strong part of her that wanted to pivot and run from this room and its heady air of sex and passion. Run from a man who would crook his fingers and know she’d follow.
“Miss?” he said, his tone gruff.
She let out the breath she’d been holding and took his hand. “Yes.”
There was a flicker of something in his eyes as she touched him. Desire, she thought. That particular emotion had never been pointed at her, but she’d seen such a look in both her sisters’ husbands’ expressions when the couples thought no one was looking. But there was something else in this man’s gaze, too. Respect? Regret? Some combination of the two?
She didn’t understand it, but it didn’t matter what kind of past or pain brought this man here. It only mattered that he drew her forward, through the milling crowd, back to the entrance to a long hallway. He spoke briefly to a man standing there and then guided her farther from the relative safety of the hall. Into dimness and darkness.
From behind the doors she heard soft sighs, louder moans. People were…doing things in those rooms. Wicked things she couldn’t help but imagine. Every sound put her further on edge. Made her question her decision, solidified the same decision as excitement grew in her chest. She was going to bed this man. Or let him bed her. She wasn’t certainsheknew how to bed anyone, but certainly not this man who glanced over his shoulder as he opened the last door in the hall.
Their gazes met.
“Still want this, angel?” he asked.
She tensed.Angel. Another man had called her angel once, not that long ago.
She pushed the thought away. She wouldn’t think ofhim. She refused to acknowledge she’d thought ofhimat all over the weeks since she last saw him. Since an afternoon of blood and pain and confusion that had changed her life forever.
“Yes,” she said, a bit too loudly as she tried to make the thoughts go away. “Yes.”
He pursed his lips again and stepped inside the room. She entered behind him, passed him, looking around. It was a small room with a big bed in front of a roaring fire. It seemed clean, elegant even, with its sophisticated artwork and silky coverlet. Odd, for she had not pictured a club of ill repute being so fine.
The door closed behind her with a click and she pivoted to face it with her heart in her throat. The masked man was leaning against it now, watching her as she reached out a trembling hand to support herself on the back of a close-by chair.
“Changed your mind,” he pressed, “now that you’re here?”
“Have you?” she asked.
“You know what I’ll do, don’t you?” he all but purred as he stepped toward her. When she didn’t answer right away, he continued, “I’ll strip that gown off you. You’ll be naked before me. Then I’m going to touch you all over until you’re arching, until you’re begging. And then I’m going to put my cock in you.”
She winced at the bold language he used. And yet the soft, sensual tone of those words excited her, too. After living her life without such blunt address, she found she actuallylikedit.
“Tell me you want that,” he said.
Her thighs clenched at the order, said in such a gravelly tone. “I-I think my coming with you to the room tells you that.”
He shook his head slowly. “No. You’re not a courtesan. I thought it before, I know it now. So I need the words. Say the words to me.”
Her cheeks felt like they were on fire as she stared at him. He couldn’treallywant her to repeat those wicked things. She’d never said those kinds of statements before. “I can’t—”
“Say it,” he repeated.
She squeezed her eyes shut. This was her last out. She could pretend offense and stomp from the room. He was all but daring her to do so. Or she could surrender to exactly what had brought her here tonight. Give herself over to the things this man promised and change her world, only this time on her own terms.
“I want—” she whispered.
“Look at me,” he interrupted.
She let her eyes open and glared at him. “I want you to strip me naked. I want you to touch me. I want you to put your…your…” She huffed out a breath because her face felt like flames were devouring it. “I want you to put your cock in me. Please.”
She added the last bit out of habit. A lady always said please. But his smile fell as she did so. He drew in a long breath and set his shoulders back slightly. She had displeased him somehow, it seemed. Though she didn’t know how. She’d done what he’d asked, hadn’t she? She’d said what he wanted her to say.
“Sir,” she began.
He jolted slightly, and then he reached up and, without preamble, tugged his mask away. Her eyes went wide, and her mouth dropped open as he did so. Because she knew this man. Knew him far too well for her own good.
And he knew her.
