Chapter 9
Sebastian allowed the sensation stirring low in his body to spread through his limbs, indulging it if only to better examine its source.
It was rare for desire to take him unguarded—rarer still for it to root in curiosity, intrigue, and something darker.
This was the second woman who had ever roused such visceral hunger in him, so swiftly and without invitation. The first was Miss Darcy Whitley.
He shoved the thought of her aside with practiced ruthlessness.
And yet…
Red stepped into the long hallway on the second floor beside Madame Rebecca, and the world narrowed to the measured sway of her hips and the glint of lamplight on yellow silk.
Red’s gown was a deep golden hue, rich as late sunlight on a dying summer day.
The bodice hugged her generous curves with unapologetic boldness, the fabric dipping just low enough to hint at the full rise of her breasts.
Her hair was piled artfully atop her head, streaks of auburn and copper pinned in a loose arrangement that left a few rebellious tendrils to trail down the column of her neck.
The red-and-black mask concealed her brow and nose, leaving only her mouth exposed—plush, parted, and unpainted.
Sebastian’s chest tightened. Red was color and softness and ripe temptation wrapped in silk and mystery.
No debutante at her first ball had ever looked so lovely.
Her steps faltered as her gaze collided with his.
Sebastian caught the telltale motion of her throat working around a tight swallow—and then the flush, deep and swift, painting her throat like spilled rose wine.
The little artist remembered him. Not only remembered, but blushed at the memory of her hand capturing him on canvas while he stroked his cock before her.
Innocent. He could all but smell it on her.
And it both fascinated and repelled him.
A woman untouched by the world’s wickedness had no business stepping foot inside Aphrodite.
What would she do, he wondered, when she faced the next scenes Madame Rebecca had planned?
When innocence was stripped away in oils and pigments, frame by frame?
If the act of watching him—one man alone, half in shadow—had rattled her composure and provoked such pretty blushes, what chaos would befall her when faced with a tangle of limbs, the slickness of heat, and mouths locked in carnal worship?
Sebastian straightened from the wall just as they reached him, arching a brow as Rebecca’s eyes danced with mischief and delight.
“I am so pleased you’ll be able to paint both scenes tonight,” Rebecca said, almost vibrating with excitement. “Are you certain it will not be too much?”
Red smiled. “I am sure.”
“Good.” Rebecca clapped her hands once. “One scene will be of wicked debauchery, and the other of almost sweet innocence. This idea came to me after a few of my best patrons were stolen by matrimony. I want a set of artwork to tell a story. A young woman, her innocence brushed by temptation… a first kiss, the first wicked touch of seduction and her yielding to it… and then the moment he takes her. Each canvas must tell the story of ravishment and seduction. I want her resistance and hunger etched across her face—every raw, aching emotion laid bare. I want to see the curiosity on her face, and the surrender.”
Sebastian smiled faintly. Trust Rebecca to devise such a scandalous progression and speak of it with all the ease of discussing a dinner menu.
He looked at her a moment longer, amused and oddly touched.
It had been seven years since he’d pulled her out of the rain, when a brute of a man had chased her through the streets and cornered her like prey.
She’d been trembling, soaked to the skin, and yet even then there had been a spark in her—a fierce, calculating spark.
Since then, they have been friends. No blurred lines.
No sexual play. Only mutual respect and the rare comfort of understanding.
Sebastian allowed his gaze to drift to Red.
When she reached him, she lowered into a graceful curtsy. “My lord. How delightful to see you again.”
His mouth quirked slightly, but he did not reply—merely inclined his head before offering his arm to Madame Rebecca.
Together, they entered the private salon, Red falling into step beside them.
Sebastian said nothing to Red, but he felt her quiet tension with every step.
The room was already prepared: the chair and easel positioned near the window, brushes neatly arranged, oils and palettes waiting.
Red had only just taken her seat and adjusted the angle of her canvas when Lord Dunmore entered, exuding practiced sensuality. He strolled toward her, his gaze slow and deliberate, an unmistakable gleam of carnal curiosity in his light green eyes.
“What fortune has fallen upon me to be painted by such a beautiful woman? Permit me your name.”
She glanced up, startled. “You may call me Red, my lord.”
He tsked. “No, I don’t like that. I shall call you—”
Dunmore broke off when he spotted Sebastian standing by the mantel, calmly pouring brandy into a glass.
“Raine?” Dunmore said, brows lowering. “I thought I was being painted this evening.”
“You are,” Sebastian replied smoothly, swirling the liquid in his glass. “I am merely observing.”
Awareness sparked in Dunmore’s eyes, sharpening into something less pleased. A muscle jumped in his jaw, but before he could voice a protest, Lady Lavinia made her entrance.
Rebecca referred to all her courtesans as “Lady,” a title she wielded like a dagger dipped in honey—half flattery, half mockery.
Lavinia was striking, her figure slender but sensuous beneath a sheer silk peignoir that clung like mist to her skin.
Waves of black hair tumbled over her shoulder, framing a face painted for pleasure.
She didn’t spare Red or Sebastian a glance; all her sultry attention fixed on her client as she glided to his side.
Red looked over at Sebastian then, her expression caught between apprehension and determination. He offered a small, amused smile.
“They are the actors before your eyes,” Sebastian said, his voice deliberately low and smooth as silk pulled taut.
He kept his gaze on her, not the couple entwined on the chaise.
“Watch their congress and paint, Miss Red. Rebecca is particularly eager to capture the precise moment Lavinia peaks with pleasure.”
She stiffened, color rushing up her neck. “How will I know when she is… peaking?”
A flicker of surprise, brief but sharp, cut through Sebastian. The question was so honest, so untouched, that it jerked something unexpected inside his chest.
“You will know,” he murmured. “It is a sound of delight.”
Red cast him a quick, startled glance, the reaction unmistakable even beneath her mask. “Delight?”
“Yes.” Sebastian smiled. “You’ll hear it in the change of her breathing…
when it goes ragged and desperate. In the broken moan that isn’t shaped by language but by need.
Look at her body—it will tremble, hips lifting, hands grasping for anything to anchor her.
Her lips will part, her lashes flutter, and her skin will flush as if kissed by flame. ”
He tilted his head, watching Red’s throat work around a swallow. “It’s not subtle. When it comes, it’s a storm, Red.”
Red swallowed hard, her hand tightening around the brush before she set it down again with care.
What little of her throat and jaw he could see above the collar of her gown had flushed deep pink—ripe as summer apples.
She could not hide the quick rise and fall of her chest or the way her legs shifted beneath her skirts as if trying to dispel heat.
Sebastian didn’t look away. He wasn’t thinking of Lavinia and Dunmore on the chaise. He was thinking only of Red. And how he would very much like to be the storm that broke her apart.
Madness, he thought with some measure of good humor. To be so attracted to her is nonsensical madness.
Sebastian took a slow sip of his brandy, amused and intrigued.
She was already blushing furiously, and they hadn’t even begun.
He didn’t watch Dunmore and his lover, though he typically savored the art of voyeurism—pleasure observed, not taken, yet deeply felt.
There was something in witnessing desire unfolding that allowed him to indulge without surrendering.
But tonight, his attention was fixed elsewhere.
Sebastian watched Red. She sat with her spine straight, chin tilted in concentration, lips parted just slightly.
The flicker of candlelight played across the curve of her cheek and the slope of her neck, gilding her in warm hues that had nothing to do with sin but seemed to shimmer with it all the same.
He found himself wondering, not for the first time, who she truly was.
What had brought her here? What story lay behind the mask?
What desperation had driven her to paint scenes so clearly at war with her sensibilities?
Red gasped suddenly, her hand lifting to her throat in a startled, almost helpless gesture.
Sebastian lifted a brow, and shifted his gaze to the chaise.
Lavinia lay sprawled back, her legs thrown over Dunmore’s shoulders as he licked her pussy with obscene greed.
The wet sounds of his tongue and fingers working her slit filled the room alongside the low thrum of Lavinia’s panting breaths.
Lavinia gripped the arm of the chaise, knuckles white, body arching helplessly into the relentless lash of his mouth.
Red gasped again, and this time her hand shot for the brush.
“Do not stop what you are doing, Lord Dunmore,” she said, her voice sharp and clear. “This expression she wears, I must capture it.”