He angled her head back, deepening the kiss, tasting the lingering hint of wine on her lips.
It was nothing like their last kiss.
This was hotter, more desperate, more demanding.
This was the kind of kiss that started fires.
He was barely aware of his hands sliding down her back, pulling her flush against him, of the way her body fit against his so perfectly.
He was about to say something reckless, something utterly irrevocable, when she pulled back slightly, her breathing unsteady.
“Damn you. Why do you have to be so good at that?”
His breath was coming in hard bursts. “I was about to ask you the same question.”
“You still want to see me again?” she murmured.
His grip tightened. “You already know the answer to that.”
Her lips parted slightly, as if considering something. Then—very deliberately—she tilted her head, watching him carefully, and asked, “Do you know the Onyx Club?”
The breath left his body.
Ash stilled, his entire body going taut.
Of course, he knew the Onyx Club.
It was a sin club. A pleasure club. A club where London’s elite went to indulge in all sorts of wicked behavior.
And he, of course, was a longtime member.
His fingers flexed against her waist. He should have expected this from her. Clare had been full of surprises since the moment she walked into his life.
But this?
This changed everything.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Onyx Club was everything the whispered rumors promised it to be—dark, decadent, and entirely without morals. Clare had been here before, many times, but never with the purpose she had tonight.
Black and gold adorned every surface, from the plush carpets beneath her slippered feet to the gilded chandeliers overhead, casting flickering light over the masked figures that lounged, drank, and gambled their inhibitions away.
Upstairs, behind locked doors and velvet curtains, the most elite members of thetonindulged in every sort of pleasure.
She had heard of this place from Marsden, of all people. That smug, selfish bastard had enjoyed boasting about his secret haunts, assuming she would be shocked and scandalized.
Instead, she had been intrigued. Little did Marsden know that telling her about the club would lead to her eventual freedom from the invisible shackles she’d worn since he’d tossed her aside.
Oh, yes, Clare had been here before. Many times. But always to gamble. Never to take a man upstairs.
Tonight, she intended to change that.
She adjusted the smooth black satin mask over her eyes and approached a roulette table, the hum of conversation surrounding her like an intoxicating spell.
The Onyx Club never failed to make her feel free. She was no stranger to scandal, to being whispered about behind fluttering fans with disapproving glances cast her way. But here at the club, there was no whispering save for wicked propositions. And judgment certainly had no place here. Reputation was something left outside the club’s tall wooden doors. And that suited Clare just fine.
Normally, she came here to win large sums of money from drunken fools. The same types of drunken fools who rubbed elbows with odious men like the Earl of Marsden. She felt no guilt for taking their money at the end of the night. Half of the men she won from here were cheating both at cards and on their long-suffering wives. If she managed to make their purses lighter before they went back home, so be it.
