The Prince of Pleasure (Notorious 5)

His gaze made a slow sweep of her body. "What did you have in mind?"

In answer, she spun on her heel and opened the door to her bedchamber. Pausing, she glanced back at him, her look filled with challenge. "Are you coming?"

For once, Julienne saw with satisfaction, she had rendered Dare speechless. But he hesitated only a moment before following her.

It was warmer here, she noted. She stirred the coals in the grate to a cheery blaze and then lit a lamp and set it on the mantel. Dare had shut the door behind him and was surveying the drab room's meager furnishings: a narrow bed, a washstand, a wardrobe and dressing table, and a single wooden chair placed near the hearth.

"Take off your clothes," Julienne ordered as she shed her cloak and hung it on a wall peg. When she turned, she found Dare watching her with half-lidded eyes, heat and wariness glittering in their depths.

"Just like that? You expect me to undress with no preliminaries?"

Her smile was at once seductive and scornful. "Are you afraid, Lord Wolverton?"

"With you in this mood?" His mouth curled. "I think perhaps I should be."

"Indeed you should," she taunted with a coy toss of her head.

Her mind told her she was playing with fire, but she refused to back down from her challenge. The anger driving her was too fierce to ignore. She felt like a powder keg on the verge of explosion. She wanted to punish Dare, to hurt him as he had hurt her. She wanted to conquer him.

Thus far she had claimed few victories in their battle, but that would change tonight, Julienne vowed. And she would use her body as her weapon.

"Well?" she asked impatiently, placing her hands on her hips.

He did undress then, albeit more slowly than she would have liked. While she watched, he removed his coat and cravat and draped them over the back of the chair, then drew off his linen shirt. His bare torso gleamed golden in the firelight, rippling with corded muscle.

He sat to remove his pumps and stockings and reached for the front placket of his breeches. Hesitating, he glanced up at her, as though to see if she was watching.

Julienne curved her lips in a half smile and met the dark challenge in his eyes. Unfastening his breeches, Dare stood and slowly peeled them down, revealing the hard, flat contours of his belly… the tantalizing pelt of dark gold hair that swept down to his groin… He eased the satin fabric lower. Freed from constraint, his rampant member jerked upward toward his belly, already flushed and engorged in anticipation.

Julienne's mouth went dry. Despite her determination to remain unmoved, she felt her body respond. But she refused to let Dare know of her weakness.

"I would say you are rather eager for me," she mocked.

"I am always eager for you, cherie," Dare retorted wryly. "That is nothing new."

He drew the garment down farther, exposing the velvety pouch of his heavy testicles, his sinewy thighs and calves. Then he stepped out of his breeches, leaving his lean, powerful body naked.

He was beautiful, Julienne thought in reluctant awe. Lithe and strong and sensual, the focus of all her fantasies. Desire clawed at her, insistent and sharp, as she moved to stand before him, but she tried to hide it with a mocking smile.

Deliberately she ran the tip of her finger along his hard-muscled ribs, over his flat belly to his swollen phallus that seemed to beg her for attention.

Dare's eyes narrowed, but she ignored the danger in his green gaze as she curled her fingers over the silken-steel shaft.

"Shall we see how long you can resist me?" she asked.

"Do your worst," he said with maddening nonchalance.

Oh, I will, Julienne thought darkly. She would break him. She would make him plead with her for mercy…

She stood on tiptoe to kiss him, but there was nothing tender about her gesture. Instead she bit at his lips, raking her teeth against his flesh.

She heard his low grunt of surprise as he recognized the primal, dangerous edge to her lovemaking, but other than

the tensing of his body, he made no protest.

Still holding his arousal in her hand, Julienne nipped at his jaw, the strong column of his throat, the sleek skin of his shoulder, then moved to his chest, to the flat male nipples. When she bit lightly, he drew a sharp breath. With a faint smile of triumph, she spent a long moment on his nipples, licking and suckling and grazing with her teeth, before gliding on.

When her fiery mouth trailed downward toward his stomach, though, Dare realized her intent and grasped her arms, halting her. "I want you naked first. Unless you're afraid?" he added when she looked up at him.