Temptation & Twilight. Charlotte Featherstone

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СКАЧАТЬ Alynwick and his fiendish ways could render her speechless and gauche. She hoped he hadn’t seen her expression, or the way she could barely keep up with him.

      “This will have to do,” he muttered.

      Her world was one of black obsidian, and she could not tell if he had brought her somewhere equally as dark, or merely shadowed. It was quiet, she knew. The distant clang of silver and china told her that they were closer to the servants preparing the midnight luncheon, and farther away from the salon. Whether they were in a room or a hall, she could not tell. She hated not knowing, of being blind to everything, when she had never been anything but these past twelve years. That she was not in control while in Alynwick’s company sent a jolt of panic down her body. Of anyone, she most feared being vulnerable when he was near.

      The wall was cool against her neck and bare shoulders as he swung her around and pressed her against the plaster. She sensed him before her, his heat, the scent of his body. He loomed over her, his heavily muscled, tall frame standing so near her short, voluptuous one that she was forced to share the very air with him. She should lift her chin up, an act of defiance. Try to meet his gaze head-on. But she had no knowledge of her eyes, and what they might do, where they might be directed, and she would not give him a glimpse of her weakness, no matter how fleeting it might be.

      So she stood quietly, willing her breathing to slow and become controlled. Her head was lowered, her face averted, turned away from him. His breath kissed her skin as she maintained her stance, knowing she was not meeting his gaze, but showing him indifference. He touched her, the faintest graze of his fingertips along her cheek, and she struggled against him, pushing away from his touch. It only made him press closer to her—obscenely closer, for she could feel the way his abdomen moved against her gown with each of his breaths.

      “Say something,” she declared, despising the fact that she couldn’t see his face and expression. Was he looking at her? Smirking? Having a good laugh at her expense?

      “What would you have me say?”

      In a fit of frustration she stamped her foot. “How could you!” she demanded, thinking of how she must have looked to the Sumners’ guests as he dragged her out of the salon. “Oh,” she whispered, “what have you done?”

      “Protected you,” he replied. “Sheltered you from the company of one who could never know you—not like how I know you.”

      Refusing to pay any heed to the last of his statement, or the intimacy that seemed to be created between them, Lizzy forged on, thinking it best to steer him away from any reminders of the past. “Whatever were you thinking to do such a thing? Have you grown so uncouth?”

      “Truth?” he murmured, and she refused to melt at the sound of his silken voice.

      “Are you capable of speaking it?” she taunted.

      “Aye. Are you capable of hearing it?”

      Snorting with indignation, she motioned for him to continue. She did not, however, expect him to whisper into her ear, “I thought I might carry you off, back into my den, where I would play with you, paw at you, before devouring you whole.”

      She shivered as she felt his hand brush along her gown. “And there is quite a bit to devour, isn’t there?” he went on. “You’ve turned into a right armful, haven’t ye? Plump as a Rubens’ model, ye are,” he said, his deep voice rumbling in his chest. His comment only made her more vulnerable—and incensed. Churl! To speak of her figure in such a way was positively unforgivable. She had gained a few stone over the years, it was true, but it was grossly ungentlemanly for the man to mention it.

      Using some of her anger, she said in a haughty voice, “I demand to know what you are about, sir. The truth.”

      “And I demand the same. What the devil,” he growled back, “are you about?”

      “Not that it is any of your concern,” she sniffed in her best matriarchal tone, “but I am at a musicale, enjoying myself. I didn’t realize it was a crime.”

      “Oh, aye, ‘tis a crime, all right, looking the way you do, making every eye in the room turn your way. Making them stare at the picture you present.”

      She gasped, unable to help it. Such a cruel, cold bastard. She was a mature woman who could think what she wanted, say what she desired, and what she thought of Alynwick was nothing but the truth. She, more than anyone, knew just how cold and cruel, and every inch a bastard, the Marquis of Alynwick truly was.

      His comment was beyond shocking, and she had to struggle to put herself to rights. She was an independent woman, a strong woman, and she would not let a member of the opposite sex demean her in such a way. She might be blind, but she always carried herself with dignity and decorum. If the occupants of that room were gawking at her, that was their problem, not hers.

      Just as she opened her mouth to give him a scathing set-down, he leaned forward, and she felt a faint wave of heat against her cheek.

      “How can you go about like this, knowing everyone is watching?” he growled. He was closer now, his breath fanning her mouth. She could smell the Scotch, almost taste the sweet spice on her tongue. “I canna bear to see it.”

      When she would not answer, he pressed closer, the heat of his body greedily absorbed by her traitorous one. His mouth was even closer now, next to her ear, his voice almost a caress. “You show too much, Lady Elizabeth, reveal what is meant to be kept hidden, to be indulged and shared only with one that may appreciate the gift.”

      “As I am completely blind, my lord, I have no idea what you are talking about. Just what am I showing?”

      “I refer to the garment you have chosen to arrive in.”

      “What could be the matter? It is an evening gown, sir. Or have I had the misfortune to leave the house without my dress? Is that it? Am I naked?”

      “You might as well be for what little it covers up.”

      His voice had changed. It still held anger, though she could not fathom why, but there was something else there, and she reached up, smoothed her hand along her throat, to discover for herself what atrocity Alynwick saw displayed before him.

      “That gown,” he rumbled in a dark, seductive voice, “is an invitation to sample what you so willingly display.”

      She stiffened at his absurd statement. “I have no notion what you insinuate is being displayed.”

      There was a smile mixed with the edge in his voice. “Lass, you ken damn well what I mean.”

      His body shifted, and hers jumped as if being lanced with a lightning bolt as she felt the smooth texture of his nails grazing the mounds of her décolletage. Oh, God, he’s running the back of his hand along me.

      “Such a sight, lass, makes a man dangerous,” he murmured, though Elizabeth could hardly hear him for the roar of blood in her ears, and the outrage that made rational thought impossible. “Such a display is just what a man needs before he dies.”

      His lips followed the path of his fingers. Those seductive lips of his, which could pleasure and tease, or thin with cruelty, were grazing her chin, working down the column of her throat as he gently inserted his fingers into the cleft between her breasts. “Oh, aye, to die in arms such as this, and to be buried in such soft, lush flesh, is what every man should wish СКАЧАТЬ