“I require a lover.”
Well,hell.
That was decidedly not what he had been expecting. At all. Also, would it be wrong to suggest himself for the position?
Demon could not stay the swift thought, but he promptly dashed it. Gen would kick him in the arse.
“Here now.” He frowned. “I ain’t a pimp.”
Damn it—there went his efforts at speaking like a gentleman. He had been working on his unchecked tongue so well thus far.
“It was not my intention to suggest you were.”
He stroked his jaw, considering her, enjoying her feminine curves in that gown far more than he ought. “Explain, madam.”
“This club’s attraction is its secrecy and circumspection.”
Was it?
“Hmm. I thought it was the hazard tables,” he said lightly, as if they were equals.
There was something about this moment between them that was personal. Intimate.Carnal, even. The air seemed charged and ready to combust. Or mayhap that was just him.
Fuck.Was he flirting with her?
Aye. That he was.
And he had not an inkling as to her identity. She could be anyone. A lady, a mistress.Hell, she could be a duchess. Not too goddamn likely, but the possibility remained.
“Hazard may appeal to some. Not to me, however,” she said.
“Finding a man to bed you does?” he asked, then cursed himself for the looseness of his tongue.
Gen would bludgeon him with the nearest available object for this, if she were to ever hear of it.
Number one hundred fourpursed her lips. “You are being dismissive.”
“Fancy words. All I do is run a gaming house.”
“You are suggesting I should not wish for a lover,” she elaborated, surprising him with her bravado.
The wordlover, spoken in her dulcet tones, was making his cock hard. Her voice wasn’t the only part of her having that particular, unwanted effect upon him, however.
He shook himself from the spell she’d cast upon him. “Men like me don’tsuggest. We say what we mean, and what I’m telling you is that Lady Fortune does not provide the kind ofcircumspectionyou’re after.”
“I understand.” Her voice was cool, her demeanor icy. “Forgive me for my mistake.”
She turned to go once more.
For some reason, a reason that emerged from deep inside him, murky and indistinct and yet forceful, he did not want her to go just yet.
“My lady.”
She looked back to him.
“Mayhap I can be of help to you.”
* * *
