Claiming the Courtesan

Then there was nothing.

After a moment, she opened her eyes. He still leaned on one bent arm, watching her. His face was flushed and his eyes were dark with desire. Although she’d long ago abandoned modesty as a luxury a whore couldn’t afford, she fought the urge to cover herself with the sheet.

“This isn’t working,” he murmured, lifting his hand to brush a few stray strands of hair back from her cheeks.

How she abhorred the false tenderness of the gesture. Loathing lent her response an acid edge. “I told you I wasn’t willing.”

He ignored her interjection. “I’m too disturbed myself. I find the strategy I’ve chosen…distracting.”

“What do you want from me? Sympathy?” she gritted out.

In the candlelight, he was almost sinfully beautiful. His narrow face was thoughtful under the wing of black hair that fell across his brow. It lent him a boyish air she knew was a lie.

His gaze dwelled on her as though she were a philosophical problem he was compelled to solve. “I’m trying to stir you into a frenzy of lust,” he said consideringly.

The idea was so ridiculous that she couldn’t restrain a scornful laugh. “You must know that won’t happen.”

“You shouldn’t make challenges you can’t live up to.” He tugged at a lock of her hair in gentle reproof. “You’re far from unaffected now. But I can’t concentrate on driving you out of your mind while I’m so unsettled myself.”

Part of her wished he’d just get on with it and take her. Another part dreaded his possession. Every time he gave her pleasure she didn’t want, he chipped another piece of her soul away. Soon there would be nothing left.

“Perhaps you should go away and think about it,” she suggested without any expectation he’d heed her.

His own huff of laughter contained a trace of genuine humor. “And perhaps not.”

Strange that after all the turbulent emotion, they should speak almost like friends. This was something new. Soraya had always treated the duke with the distance due his rank, even when she’d used her mouth and hands and body to bring him to climax.

It was doubly strange when at any moment the duke would be inside her. The flickering light gilded the strong, lean lines of his body and left her in no doubt at all of his rampant readiness.

As he rose above her, she searched desperately for her hatred and anger. Both had receded further than she’d have believed possible.

He bent to kiss a long scratch a thorn had left on her neck, and they receded even further.

“You’re hurt,” he whispered.

Yes, she was, but not in the way he meant.

“It’s nothing,” she said, making her tone hostile.

The spurious intimacy of the warm bed in this candlelit room sapped her ability to resist. When she stopped resisting, he’d

destroy her. His scent surrounded her, reminding her irresistibly of other occasions when she’d lain next to him willingly.

“Let me kiss it better.” He lifted one of her hands and deliberately pressed his mouth to each mark. Her hands had borne the brunt of her wild flight into the shrubbery.

For a moment, she remained quiescent. Absurd, but his kisses did soothe the sting. She realized how close she came to wavering, and she snatched her hand away.

Yet again, Kylemore summoned tenderness to vanquish her. She had to conceal just how vulnerable she was to that particular ploy, although he was frighteningly perceptive and he’d probably already guessed, damn him.

“Stop it!” she snapped. “There’s no need to dress up what you intend to do to me in pretty words or gestures.”

He caught her hand again and gently but inexorably unfurled her fingers. He studied them for a long time.

“Soraya had perfect skin. Verity has calluses.”

He swept his thumb across the rough area at the base of her palm. By now, she was so sensitized to his touch that the caress tingled right through her and down to where liquid heat pooled in her loins. She shifted uncomfortably against the cool sheets.

“I’m sorry if that offends you,” she said with feeble sarcasm. “I never pretended to be anything but a peasant.”