Tilting her head back, she’d meant to smile an invitation into his eyes, but her gaze never got that far. They snagged his lips. Soft against the hard, almost cruel brackets of a perpetually masculine visage.
Those lips would indeed mark her. The russet stubble would redden her skin and tickle any flesh she exposed to him.
“I believe,” she whispered, breathless again for the second time in his presence. “I believe that you want to kiss me, Mr. Drummle.”
His answer wasn’t the witty flirtation she’d expected. Just as suddenly as she’d found herself whisked onto the dance floor, he twirled her away from it. The crowd melted before them, artists and actors mixing with lower nobility or wealthy merchants. Those with money, power, influence, but not burdened by the more strident social morals of the upper class.
Eyes followed them as they left. Millie was used to it. Because of her celebrity, people watched her wherever she went, but this time, she had a cloying suspicion she wasn’t the center of attention for once.
The farther into the Sapphire Room they ventured, the darker and seedier it became. In a gloomy nook of the hallway, two bedazzled women were locked in a passionate embrace, one lovely head buried in the other’s neck. There was desperation in their passion. One born of unfulfilled desires denied too long.
Millie found an echo of that desire surging within her own body, as she followed Mr. Drummle’s wide back into a narrow nook beneath the grand stairway. Here, the entry chandelier was dimmed to create a wicked atmosphere, but it provided enough light to cast their corner in complete shadow.
That shadow became theirs as they claimed the darkness.
Gasping, Millie found herself pressed against the wall, imprisoned between it and Bentley Drummle’s unyielding torso.
A willing prisoner, but a prisoner nonetheless.
Lord, she never did this. Certainly, she’d stolen a few kisses, or gifted them as favors. She’d shamelessly flirted, openly admired, and even allowed the pursuit of men on occasion. But never like this. Publicly, with a man she barely knew whom she didn’t need to charm for money or gain.
Just pleasure.
He stood like that for a moment, or it could have been an eternity. Their breath mingling in the darkness. Wine and port and desire.
She couldn’t see his face clearly, backlit as it was by the chandelier that cast a halo around his vibrant hair. Millie knew for a certainty that neither of them were angels, and with a man as mysterious and sensual as this one, she could pave her way to hell in only an evening.
Best get started, then.
She strained toward him, lifting her mouth in invitation, but he didn’t allow her to move. He just stood against her, his chest pressing her breasts higher as those big hands rested on her waist. She read hesitation in the movement, a hesitation she didn’t understand.
Millie knew he could see her a little. She didn’t have to fake the come-hither look this time, and finally, those hands began to move.
This man never seemed to do what she expected him to. Even now, his hands weren’t exploratory, but purposeful. They spanned the indent of her waist. Then her ribs, increasingly confined by her ever-quickening breath. His own inhale hitched when he reached her breasts, but he didn’t stop there. Didn’t cup or test them, didn’t reach beneath her low bodice to find the straining, aching nipples. His hands merely kept moving upward, across her bare chest and shoulders, the calluses on his palms abrading her tender flesh and unleashing chill bumps everywhere.
And still he didn’t kiss her. Merely stood with a whisper between their lips, his hands inching toward her throat.
Millie released a whimper of need, unashamed of the frenzy beginning to build within her. Who could have known? That desire would be this delicious? That anticipation could lock you in its hands—its large, callused hands—and strip away your pride until you wanted to beg.
“It won’t hurt, I promise,” he whispered as his fingers gently reached the nape of her neck, and then her jaw, and paused there.
It already hurt. She ached, ached in places generally best left ignored. Millie’s breath had now been reduced to little more than needy pants. “If you don’t kiss me, I’ll die,” she confessed.
He froze.
Vibrating with frustrated arousal she surged against him, lifting to her toes and grinding her lips against his.
The kiss was as hungry as it was sudden. While his eyes may have been cold, his mouth was hot and tasted of wine and male. She kissed him with abandon, enjoying the way his entire body jolted and went instantly rigid.
From the rough fingers at her throat to the hard sex in his trousers.
At the press of his arousal against her, Millie’s sensitive breasts likewise swelled beneath her corset, becoming full and heavy. Her clothes felt confining, her skin itched to be bared to him. Demanded it.
At last, his tongue invaded her mouth and she moaned her approval. His thumbs, at first resting against her clavicles, caressed the dip of her throat, the curve of her chin, the line of her jaw, all while tasting her with the insatiable gluttony of a hedonist.
Millie had a sense that he was as lost to her as she to him. More so even, and the sensual, feminine power that surged within her fed her desire. She wanted him nigh gone for her. Drunk on her. Atop her, beneath her, and within her.
Perhaps they were meant to meet tonight. Maybe he was the man she’d been waiting for, the mythical hero that would sweep her off her feet and capture her heart.
His fingers tightened again against her throat, just a little, and she gasped. Then moaned as a thrill of fear titillated down her nerves and settled as a pool of moisture between her thighs.