Chapter Sixteen
Holy hell.
Ralston’s entire body ignited with glowing sparks. Every muscle, nerve, cell, came suddenly and intensely alive. He wanted to swoop her up in his arms and claim her completely, but he couldn’t. That was not what she’d instructed.
Keeping his hands linked and his eyes locked with hers, he lowered his head and leaned forward.
The swift catch in her breath was like an arrow through his chest and he experienced a fleeting moment of uncertainty.
There was no doubt in his mind that the memory of this kiss would remain with him the rest of his life.
Then he touched his parted lips to hers.
Her hand dropped away from his chin and she tipped her face to better receive the press of his mouth.
He started with gentle pressure, savoring the lush, silken feel of her, the sultry texture of her breathy exhale, the soft hum in her throat.
When he felt the unexpected dart of her tongue, he tilted his head and fit his mouth more surely over hers, chasing the action with a short thrust of his own.
Her taste was heady, rich, and sweet, like sun-warmed berries and mystery.
He slid his tongue deeper, craving the depths of her mouth and she responded with a soft sigh and a widening of her lips that felt like a smile.
Desperate to claim even a bit of her pleasure, he sucked on her bottom lip before catching it with his teeth. Her moan was low and intimate. Her body tilted toward him, but she didn’t press herself against him as he wished she would. She didn’t even touch him. And he couldn’t touch her.
A ragged growl rumbled in his throat as frustration gripped him. He wanted more. He needed more.
She pulled back then, her whiskey gold eyes fluttering open as she pressed her finger to his parted lips. For several, long, labored breaths, they stared at each other. The air around them was redolent with passion and touched his skin with warm desire.
Ralston’s muscles ached as he stood, expectant and waiting. Anticipating what she would want of him next. It was a delicious feeling. Dark and difficult and so full of poignant possibility.
He wanted to say something, but there were no words.
He wanted to reach for her, pull her against him. But his hands stayed behind his head.
“You want more, mon grand?” Her voice was husky and deep.
“Oui, Madame,” he graveled.
He saw just a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth before she stepped back, removing her warmth and her touch.
He nearly stepped toward her, instinct urging him to reclaim her closeness.
“Lower your gaze.”
He did so immediately. “Oui, Madame.” The words barely managed to form past his clenched jaw.
“I want to give you more,” she murmured quietly, intimately.
A shiver danced over his skin as he realized her French accent had all but vanished. It was Miss Dickson who spoke. When he flicked his eyes upward just enough to see her hands at her sides, he saw how her fingers curled into her palms, as though she were resisting something inside her.
He almost broke position then. Almost looked into her face. Almost reached for her.
“I shouldn’t,” she whispered as she took another step back. Then another, as she started to merge with the shadows that reached from the edges of the room.
“Why?” He risked the question, knowing it could push her further away, knowing it could bring everything to an abrupt halt.
“This isn’t what I came here for.”
She sounded oddly uncertain. Not at all what he’d become accustomed to in this room. It was not even the bold insolence he’d come to expect from the Miss Dickson he’d encountered in society.
In a moment, she would be gone. And he wasn’t certain she’d return.
He looked up met her wide and expressive gaze. “Don’t leave.” His single firm command, spoken sharply with a hint of the panic rising in his chest, brought her to a brief halt.
Then she tensed. Her eyes flashed.
“You forget yourself. I give the commands in this room.”
His heart thudded against his ribs.
Then command me to touch you! Command me to take you.
The words shouted through his mind, but aloud, he muttered only, “Oui, Madame.”
“On your knees.”
He lowered himself immediately.
“Hands to your thighs.”
“Oui, Madame.”
She said nothing about lowering his gaze so he continued to stare at her standing half in shadow, half poised to flee, willing her with his stare to stay with him.
If he’d been allowed to speak freely in that moment, he’d have asked her to remove her mask, to be with him as herself, to return to his home where he could bring her to his bedroom and do all the things he could imagine to bring her pleasure and earn her praise.
“This can go no further.”
Ralston tensed as a growl rose in his throat. “Was this always your intention?” he asked gruffly. “To inspire…this wicked hunger inside me and then desert me to the aching pain of going unfulfilled?”
Her chin notched upward. “Initially? Yes. You’d humiliated me. You could’ve ruined me. You made me feel like nothing and I needed to prove it wasn’t true.”
The bold honesty in her explanation sent frissons of denial through his body.
He wanted to defend himself against her words, but he knew they were true.
It didn’t matter what reason he had for his behavior that evening, he’d been thoughtless and careless in his reaction to their unexpected encounter.
Her anger toward him was justified, but there was a note of regret in her voice.
“I did not expect…I did not intend for this,” she admitted softly.
Ralston stared at her, noting the tension filling her lovely form, the flush of her skin, the glistening of her lips, and the swift pulse at her throat.
“You did not expect to ache as I do,” he murmured, knowing it was true. “Need as I do.”
She closed her eyes and gave a hard shake of her head, but the denial was pointless.
“You are a distraction,” she insisted, a subtle trembling in her words. “One I cannot afford. We are done here.”
She barely finished speaking before she turned on her heel and left the room. Left him.
He let her go.
But it wasn’t over. Whatever held her back, he’d discover it and overcome it.
Because he wanted her. In this room or beyond it.
Beneath him or atop. She’d forged something between them.
Something that had become anchored deep into his being.
And he wasn’t going to pretend it hadn’t changed absolutely everything.