She smiled. “Good. I think after waiting so long, it’s best to let this be between you and me.”
“I admit I hardly know what to do with you now that you’re here before me.”
She arched a brow. “You? After all the stories I’ve heard about you over the years, I can’t believe that. But perhaps it been a long time. Do they not have willing women in America?”
“Youdoknow a great deal,” he mused softly. “And yes, they do have very obliging women in the former colony. But…it’s been a while.”
She cocked her head. That was a surprising admission. Every bit of research she’d obsessively done about this man said he was a love and leave kind of person. A charming rogue who gave pleasure and sought it with equal fervor and never connected anything deeper to either act.
“How long?” she asked.
He studied her a moment—reading her, she realized. The way people like themhadto read people. Those who didn’t belong, those who had something to lose if they chose wrong. How did she fare, she wondered, with this man who had been her fascination for so long.
“About a year,” he admitted. “I got bored of the game.”
“Perhaps you weren’t playing it right,” she whispered, and then reached to the front of her gown. Her seamstress made all of them so they were easy for her to remove and put on herself. She flicked a few buttons, unwrapped a little fabric, pulled a ribbon tie and the entire contraption fell around her feet in an artful pool of silk.
She was naked beneath, just as she always was. She couldn’t even remember what it was like to wrap herself in layer upon layer of propriety as if a few scraps of fabric could protect her from the real demons out in the world.
She blinked away those thoughts, ones that were odd to find given the circumstances and smiled at the man who was staring at her, slightly slack jawed.
He was truly beautiful, even more than she had recalled. Of course her memories were shrouded in half-shadow and furtive glances. Now she could truly look at him. He was so tall and broad shouldered, with dark brown hair that was unruly around his forehead. He had green eyes, those eyes she knew so well, and they were focused and reflected all his desire. Up close he had an intensity and a wildness that seemed to come from every pore of his being. It called to her own. She wasn’t going to refuse it.
“Are you going to stare all night?” she asked.
He laughed, a low, rough chuckle laced with more of that heady desire. “I think a man could make a study of you for a few days and be rejuvenated, but I’m not patient enough not to touch.” He took a long step toward her and then stopped short. “Assuming you’d like me to do so.”
He was asking for her consent, despite the circumstances. She blinked at him in wonder and then crooked her finger. “If you don’t touch me, I’ll combust and we’ll burn the place down around us. Not very fair to the proprietor of this place and all he’s built.”
He laughed again at the mention of the man who owned the masquerade. “Well, considering Marcus Rivers is a good friend of mine, I couldn’t have that.”
He stepped to her, staring down at her in the dreamy firelight and candlelight of the chamber, and as he bent his head to take her lips again he whispered, “Oh, this is going to be worth the wait.”
CHAPTER4
Arabella knew all the colors in the rainbow of her pleasure. She knew how to coax them to the surface with very little effort and welcomed all the varieties. But tonight, as the man she’d fantasized about for years put his arms around her naked body and drew her against his chest, she found something new.
Or perhaps it was something she’d lost when her innocence had gone all those many years ago. It was the heated anticipation, the wild uncertainty that contained so much wonder and also a twinge of fear. And yet here it was as she lifted into this man and kissed him. Savored him, explored him. All the while her heart throbbed like she was some virginal miss.
He seemed to feel it too, for he drew back a fraction and stared down into her eyes once more. “You’re trembling.”
She swallowed and put all her effort into donning the costume of the experienced, playful courtesan once more. “Am I?” she said with a smile as she paced away from him. “Then don’t make me wait any longer. I want to see you naked, Mr. Windham.”
When she turned, putting her hands on her hips so she’d draw his attention there, he was still watching her face. Still reading her.
“Whatever the lady desires,” he said with an incline of his head.
She kicked off her slippers, though she left her stockings tied as she watched him. Though he might not have been a courtesan, made his money from his body like she had, she still sensed something in him that was like her. He knew when to put on a show and he very obligingly did for her.
He shrugged from his jacket with almost a lazy indifference and let it fall to the floor behind him. The cravat was next, untied and unfurled without intentional speed. All the while, he held her gaze, playing with her.
She smiled. Most men expected her to play but didn’t know how to play back. She was a toy to be put back on the shelf when a man was finished with her. But this was something different.
Silas tightened the fabric of the cravat between his hands, almost displaying it for her, then tossed it over his shoulder. He was faster with the buttons at the top of his shirt and then he tugged it off with one arm.
She froze and stared. There had been very many lovers, with varying bodies and she’d enjoyed them all. But this man was someone’s masterpiece. His arms were something she could have written poetry about. Not just broad shoulders, not just spectacular biceps—no, even his forearms were something to behold.
“Your mouth is open,” he said with a low chuckle.
