One Naughty Night. Joanne Rock

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      Esme rejoiced over the conversational opening and prayed she wouldn’t blow it. “I thought it was incredibly sexy. Very…stimulating. Definitely inspiring.”

      Hugh’s jaw dropped just a little. Esme hoped that was a good sign.

      “Really? Some of our local politicians are making a push to put more restrictions on the creative license of the performance.”

      “The audience is appropriately mature here.” Esme shook her head, thinking of all the risqué artworks from antiquity that were accumulating dust in the basements and storerooms of museums all over the world. “Throughout history, there has always been a movement to suppress sexual art, but who exactly is getting hurt in the wake of a little titillation at an adult dance club?” She cast him what she hoped was a suggestive smile and flipped her hair over one shoulder. “So a few more men and women go home together tonight because a provocative dance has gotten them fired up. What harm is there in that?”

      Hugh’s dark eyes widened.

      Did he have no clue what she was driving at here? Perhaps a woman needed to be more overt about what she wanted.

      “I agree there’s no harm,” he started, the words seeming to stick in his throat a bit.

      Esme rushed to clarify. “All I’m saying is that we ought to be able to appreciate the invitation to seduction without feeling guilty because we enjoyed it, you know?”

      Hugh shrugged. “I wouldn’t say I feel guilty. But some people—”

      “That’s great.” She squeezed his forearm, relishing the way a man’s arm contained muscle in the most innocuous of places and hoping positive reinforcement would help steer him in her direction. “Because I don’t feel guilty either. You want to walk me up to my room?”

      “You have a room here?” His voice rasped across another throaty note.

      Esme handed him his half-full goblet. “Tonight was a birthday present from your aunt. Mrs. Wolcott reserved a room for me when she set up our date so I wouldn’t have to worry about taking a bus home.”

      “I would have never put you on a bus at two o’clock in the morning, Esme.” His dark eyebrows knit together in that serious manner that warmed her insides. Hugh Duncan knew enough about chivalry to make a woman’s heart beat faster.

      “Maybe Mrs. Wolcott just wanted to give me a place to retreat to in case our date didn’t go as well as she’d hoped.” The dear woman. Esme couldn’t wait to give her a big hug and some homemade bread for sending this gorgeous man into her life if only for one night.

      “About my aunt—”

      Esme jumped up from the table, certain that this line of conversation would only distract them from the flirtatious atmosphere she’d struggled to maintain ever since the feathered dancers had departed the lounge.

      Doting aunts were not a topic she wished to discuss while in seduction mode for the first time in her life.

      “How about one dance before we call it a night?” She extended her hand to him in yet another unprecedented move. Esme Giles, the woman who’d busted the grading curve in every class she’d ever taken, the college geek turned scholar for life, was asking the most gorgeous guy in the room to dance with her.

      And as if her lucky stars were in perfect alignment over her head, the DJ changed the pace to a slow groove, a song that was sexy and danceable and just right for getting close to this man.

      Either because of his chivalrous nature or else because he knew fate was conspiring against him, Hugh slid out of the booth and rose to his feet. Esme gulped as his arm slipped around her waist, the warm expanse of his palm connecting with the small of her back.

      “How can I refuse a beautiful woman’s request?”

      Oh my.

      No one had ever called her beautiful before. Cute, maybe. And she knew better than to fall for idle flattery, but something about the way he looked at her when he said it made her feel beautiful. Strong. Confident.

      As they made their way toward the floor, Esme revised her former opinion that she had been overdressed for tonight. Right now, with long masculine fingers applying light pressure to her spine, she felt as if she wore nothing at all. The thin silk of her dress seemed to scorch and vanish beneath that sure, possessive touch.

      She scoped out the dance floor, hoping to find a place for them among the mob of other couples vying for space on the hardwood floor. But she needn’t have concerned herself. Before she’d analyzed all the options, Hugh twirled her toward him, somehow halting her midspin so that she ended up face to face with him, firmly in his arms.

      Every schoolgirl fantasy she’d ever hoped for in vain was granted in that long minute as she stared up at him. It didn’t matter that she’d never been greatly noticed, fawned over or otherwise admired by a charismatic male in the course of her younger days because right now the forces of cosmic balance were finally tipping the scale in her favor.

      And she was winning big.

      She could have gazed into those dark brown eyes of his forever, but the subtle sway of their feet beneath them jolted her back to awareness. They were dancing.

      Not the awkward one-two-three, one-two-three of stepping on one another’s feet that had been a staple in her personal repertoire. No, she wasn’t even sure how they were dancing or why her body knew just how to follow his, but they moved together in supple agreement as smoothly as if they’d been choreographed.

      His body met hers—hip to hip, thigh to thigh—in a warm, sinuous connection. Her skin flamed right through her silken skirt as she realized how little a barrier her gypsy dress provided. And her breasts…

      She didn’t dare move away from him now that her breasts grazed his chest. Her reaction—and attraction—would be immediately obvious.

      The music enveloped them, folding her into the slow bass line as the dance floor lights all turned to a moody shade of blue. In the dimness, she could almost convince herself they were alone as they moved together in total accord.

      “Thanks for sharing a drink with me tonight, Esme.” His voice emanated from above her, but she was close enough to hear the rumble of speech in his chest. Through the thin layer of black cotton that covered superb pecs. Through the faded pine scent of his aftershave that she only detected now that he was near.

      “I hope your aunt didn’t have to twist your arm into coming tonight.” She kicked herself as soon as she said it because it sounded like the kind of paranoid comment an eighteen-year-old would make. Did she not only have to monitor all her actions but her speech now, too?

      He didn’t look turned off by her insecure comment, however. He trailed a thumb over her cheek and tipped her face up to his.

      “No one twisted my arm, Esme. You were a definite choice of my free will.”

      Something inside her sighed with pleasure.

      Gooseflesh popped out over her skin, a mix of shivery chills and tingly anticipation. His sure touch made her eyelids flutter, fall closed for one long moment.

      When the kiss that she’d hoped for didn’t materialize, СКАЧАТЬ