She shook her head. “No… no actually, your touch is making it worse.” She dared a glance up at him. His brow furrowed.
“Worse?” The furrow deepened. “Why?”
“Because when you touch me… when you touch me, Cade…” She shook her head. “What’s the second?” she asked, breaking the spell between them.
“The second?” He searched her face.
“The second thing you’re truly good at.”
This time his grin was positively wolfish. “This,” he murmured right before he pulled her tightly against his body and his mouth descended to capture hers.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Their mouths tangled, his slanting over hers. Her arms went up to reach around his neck. She forgot all about Grimaldi and the mission as soon as Cade picked her up and laid her on the bed. He came down on top of her, his mouth never leaving hers. His tongue plunged again and again until she was moaning and mindless.
His hips settled in between her legs, which she opened for him. They were both still fully dressed. It was the most erotic thing she’d ever felt, his hardness pushing against her softness through their layers of clothes. He ground his hips against her and his mouth continued to shape and mold hers. He cradled her face in his hands, whispering words in her ear. Dirty words. Words about what he wanted to do to hersansclothing.
His hands snaked up to her décolletage and tugged down the front of both her gown and her shift. One of her breasts popped free and his mouth moved down to claim it. She gasped as soon as his lips found her nipple. He bit, he licked, he brushed his hot tongue across it, making her arch toward his mouth and moan. He sucked it and Danielle nearly sobbed. She held his head to her while zings of white heat shot from her breast to the intimate spot between her legs, the spot he was rubbing against. His hips levered against hers in a primitive rhythm she didn’t want to end.
When Danielle finally found the will to push him away, his mouth came off her breast with a sucking sound. He released her arms, but continued to hold her close, his forehead pressed to hers, his breathing heavy, his shoulders heaving, his breath loud in the silence of the room. Tentatively, she raised her hand to his chest and pressed her palm against the soft linen of his shirt. His heart was pounding as crazily as hers was.Bien.
“Cade, I must go.”
“Let me feel you for a moment. Give me something to remember you by.” His hands moved over her shoulders and down to her bodice to cup her small breasts.
She didn’t want to deny him, but a glance at the little clock that rested on the table told her it was nearly half past. Grimaldi would have her head for being so late.
She grabbed Cade’s muscled upper arms and squeezed. In another time and place, in another world, she would do more than let him touch her. She’d have given herself to this man. If some madness overtook her and she married someday, her husband wouldn’t be the type who would care whom she’d been with before.
“It’s a pity,” she murmured, cupping Cade’s face with a still-trembling palm.
“What is?” He turned his rough cheek and kissed her palm, sending sparks shooting through her body.
She let out a throaty laugh. “I didn’t realize I’d said that aloud.”
“You did.” Cade pulled her hand away from his face and threaded his fingers through hers. “Now you must tell me… what’s a pity?”
They were holding hands. His strong fingers had captured hers and his thumb stroked against hers in a way that made all her thoughts scatter. What had he asked her? Oh, yes. What was a pity? What was a pity, indeed? She did her best to ignore the thrumming of her pulse and retraced her thoughts. What had she been thinking? Right.That. She arched her brow at him and gave him her naughtiest look.
“Now Imustknow,” Cade demanded, a thunderous expression on his face. He pulled her hand to his lips and kissed it.
Danielle took a moment to think. It would not be proper to tell him what she’d been considering. But when had she given a damn about being proper? She popped her lips together as she contemplated it.
“Go on,” he prompted, watching her carefully.
Danielle reluctantly and slowly pulled her hand from his grasp. She tried to memorize the details, what the rough calluses of his fingertips felt like, how his thumb turned out at the tip.
She rolled out from under him and stood up. Cade stood, too, and watched her as she dragged the pelisse she’d been laying on from the bed, straightened the coverlet, and repositioned the note on the pillow. She arranged the garment over her shoulders, looked up at Cade, and blinked. “I must go.”
Cade reached for her. “Not before you tell me what the pity is.”
She sidestepped out of his reach and bit her lip to keep from smiling. She grabbed the crumpled note from the desk, took a few steps toward the door, and scooped up her valise.
“Danielle…” Cade drew out the word in a warning tone.
Her hand on the knob, she paused to look at him over her shoulder, a smile she justknewwas impish resting on her lips. “I was going to say…” She paused, enjoying this moment of teasing him. “I was going to say it’s a pity that we never spent the night together.”
With that, she flew from the room.
