A Seduction in Scarlet (Aphrodite's Club 1)

He tossed her onto the sumptuous coverings, and she landed among the cushions and bolsters with a gasping laugh. Her skirts rucked up, showing long stockinged legs and rich petticoats. He began to strip off his jacket and then changed his mind—he couldn’t wait—and flung himself down beside her.

They stared at each other, breathless, and it was as if he was on the verge of something he had never felt before.

“You know there is no future in this,” she said, as if to convince herself as well as him. “Only this moment. Only now.”

“I know,” he replied, his voice deep and sensual. “I’m not a forever kind of man.”

“Good,” she whispered, tracing his mouth with her fingertip. He bit it, hard enough for her to feel his teeth, and then reached down, bunching up her skirts and petticoats, his palm gliding over her thigh.

“I’m not going to undress you,” he murmured. “I can’t wait.”

“Neither can I,” she gasped.

He climbed on top of her and she cradled him with her thighs. He took his weight from her, and when she looked up, he was watching her as if he could pierce the veil. It disconcerted her, and she pulled him down, nuzzling his jaw, his throat, tasting his skin.

I want to be free of him…

He moved against her, filling her, and the words spun out of her head as pleasure consumed her.

Portia had not believed this second meeting between them could possibly be as remarkable as the first. She expected it to be a disappointment—she wanted it to be so. Then it would be so much easier not to see him again. But now, as the feelings within her built, as she became lost in the giving and taking of rapture, she knew she had been wrong.

It was better than before.

Marcus was able to wring every last quivering sensation from her body. He trickled champagne over her skin and licked it off, his tongue rough and deliciously erotic. She did the same for him, reveling in the sensuality of it, exploring his body in a way she had never done with a man before.

Except in her dreams.

Portia gasped and groaned as he wrapped his arms about her, entering her once more, pounding against her. She strained to reach her peak despite being weary and sated. She was almost free of him, she knew it. Once more would do it. As he drove her toward ecstasy she arched against him, clinging and crying out his name as she climbed toward her goal. And then it came, and she was falling. Falling into nothingness. A place where Marcus Worthorne, and the need he engendered in her, no longer existed.

She had done it.

Her heart was pounding. She lay beside him in the wreckage of the bed, wrung out, beyond physical desire or any of the pitfalls that went with it, and knew that it was over. This time it really was.

“I want to see you again.”

His voice was husky with weariness. She didn’t want to answer him. She didn’t want to look at him. He brushed her shoulder with his fingers, and she struggled not to pull away. But he must have felt the change in her, because he propped himself up on his elbow and leaned over her.

His face was in shadow, but the candlelight from the room behind him shone gently upon his nakedness. He was so perfectly proportioned, his body fit and strong from a life of exercise. He might appear idle but he wasn’t. In contrast to his taut, muscular body her own seemed fragile and soft and wonderfully feminine.

“We are not done with each other yet,” he told her.

“We are. There is no more us, Marcus. When I leave here we will never meet again.”

“Are you sure?” he mocked. There was a glint in his eyes.

“Yes! Yes, I am.”

He smiled, and she didn’t understand, not until he glanced down. Portia followed his gaze and, with a frisson of shock, realized that her fingers were entwined with his. They were holding hands.

He laughed but she was appalled. She jerked her hand away and slid out of the bed.

Her clothing was spread around the room and she was naked, but she collected it as if it was something she did every day. Let him watch her. Let him think of her when she was gone.

Maybe it was Marcus’s turn to dream of her.

She adjusted her veil before the mirror over the fireplace. She could see the reflection of the bed behind her, in the shadows, and the lover she was leaving behind. When she was satisfied, Portia made herself turn casually toward him.

“I have enjoyed our time together very much.”