For a split second she faltered. He seemed ... familiar. Had they met before?
God, only in her most secret fantasies. She definitely would have remembered a man this gorgeous in real life.
He was gazing down at her with an intense regard that instantly kicked her heartbeat into overdrive. “Let me help you put that on,” he offered, reaching for the mask. Flavored with a French Creole accent, the words were melodic, hypnotic. Seductive.
Her throat went dry instantly. “No. Thank you.” She managed not to croak. Too badly. “I’m not—I was just, um, testing how it felt.”
He tilted his head. “And?”
She swallowed, knowing what he was really asking. Was she available? For sex.
She licked her lips. Oh, Lord. Was she? If ever she were to do this crazy thing, now was the time. This man was ... holy hell ... pure walking sex.
And way out of her league.
“I—” This time her voice did crack. She cleared her throat. “I don’t think so.”
He smiled, undaunted. “Afraid?”
Was he kidding? “Any rational woman would be,” she told him, fighting desperately to gather her quickly flagging wits. And to douse the illicit flames of desire heating her belly.
“Mais, a rational woman wouldn’t be found in a place like this,” he observed. He slipped the mask from her fingers, brushing his hand against hers as he did so. Sparks danced along her skin. Ho-boy.
“It’s all my friend’s doing,” she said, her eyes drawn unwillingly as he ran his forefinger slowly and deliberately along the gilded edge of the mask. The gesture was disturbingly sensual ... as though he were touching her instead. Heat flashed down her chest, zinging through her breasts. She jerked her gaze away. “This wasn’t my idea.”
“And yet, here you are.” He took a step closer to her. “All on your own. Not a friend in sight.”
His gaze shifted down as her nipples tightened to hard, painful knots. Or maybe it was the low-cut dress that attracted his regard. Or both.
Ho. Boy. She should get out of there. Now. Away from this insane situation and this alarmingly sexy man. But her body just wasn’t getting the message. It wanted to stay. It wanted to indulge in all of those outrageous fantasies of helpless submission she’d only dreamed of.
Would it be so wicked to give herself to him? To let him use her body for his pleasure? To grant his every wish and fulfill his every sexual demand? And by doing so, fulfill her own fantasy?
Don’t do it! her inner good girl cried. Yes! Dare! her fantasy self urged.
She stepped back from him. “I should go.”
“Non.” He lifted the mask once again to her face, capturing her eyes as he adjusted it snugly in place. He placed the elastic around the back of her head. “You should stay.” Feathering a lock of her hair between his fingers, he let the strands cascade along the side of the mask. It was all she could do not to press her cheek into his palm. “At least let me buy you a drink,” he said, “before you go.”
What was wrong with her? She wanted to refuse. She should refuse! But there was something so powerful about this man’s attraction, something so compelling, that her mouth just wouldn’t form the words. It was as though he’d cast some kind of sensual spell over her body, filling it with a rush of urgent sexual desire. A Jaillissement de Plaisir. Like that mysterious fountain in the courtyard.
She hesitated a shade too long. He offered her his arm with a very gratified male smile, as though the night’s end were a forgone conclusion. “Vien. Come.”
Adrenaline sang through her limbs. Oh, God. Did she really want to do this?
Laura’s words echoed. Give yourself permission to become whomever you want, to do whatever you wish.
And she did want to. For once in her life, she wanted to just let herself go. Live the breathless fantasy. Be that brave woman who dared the outrageous, the risky. The downright dangerous.
Swallowing her overwhelming qualms, she reached out to take his arm and whispered tremulously, “How long do you want me for?”
His smile turned positively sinful, filled with wicked promise. “Cher. How long do you have?”
He led her through the bar area and out through a set of open French doors into a large and beautiful outdoor courtyard. As a landscape architect, Tessa saw at once the careful thought that had gone into the seemingly random and casual plan. Strings of fairy lights lit the way. Next to a winding brick path, round wrought-iron bistro tables sat tucked away in the strategically placed dark recesses among a jungle of verdant blossoming plants and vines. The heavy, sultry night air outside was spiced with soft music and the exotic scents of jasmine, gardenias, and antique roses. Couples sat talking intimately, kissing, touching, lost to the world. It was completely enchanting.
The man pulled her off the path and led her to a hidden niche containing a gurgling water feature. This one was newer than the fountain in the other courtyard next door, depicting a nude, embracing couple who kissed under a cascade of water.
His hand lighted on her bare shoulder. At his discreet but deliberate touch, she straightened and turned to look up at him. His face was shadowed, all olive skin, sculpted angles, and dark bedroom eyes. With a finger he tilted her face up to study it in the moonlight. Her mask shifted slightly, a subtle reminder of her anonymity.
“What shall I call you?” he murmured.
She debated lying and decided against it. “Tessa,” she said. He’d probably assume it wasn’t her real name, anyway.
“Enchante, Tessa.” He bent toward her and brushed his lips over hers, startling her. “I am Shay.”
“Hello,” she whispered.
Just then, the majordomo appeared carrying a tray with two glasses of champagne. Wordlessly, Shay took them and handed one to her as the waiter disappeared again. “Champagne?”
“Thank you.”
He lifted his glass and touched it to hers. “Tout quoi ti veut.”
She recognized the sentiment from the inscription around the base of the old fountain next door. Everything you wish for. “Everything?” she asked, wondering if this man could deliver what no man before had been able to.
“Mais, yeah. And much more,” he assured her, and they drank. “The question is, what is it you want?”
“I don’t know,” she hedged.
“Oh, I think you do,” he refuted. He set his glass on the edge of the fountain and stepped behind her. He put his hands on her upper arms and gently steered her around in a circle as he said, “Look carefully. Take it all in. Then tell me what excites you. What fantasy being played out makes you long to change places with the woman?”
Several tables were visible, along with the couples sitting at them. One man was in the process of slowly disrobing his masked companion. Another woman was already nude, the man fondling and kissing her body openly. At a third table, a woman was kneeling in front of the man’s chair. Tessa couldn’t see what she was doing, but she could imagine.
She licked her lips, a tingle of arousal shimmering through her at the stark displays. “Don’t they mind that others are watching?”
He smiled. “I think that’s the whole point. Look up.”
She did. For the first time she noticed the walls of the buildings around them were punctuated with large windows and French doors with balconies that opened onto the enclosed courtyard. Some had the curtains drawn, but just as many stood wide-open, revealing in more or less detail what was going on in the rooms behind them.
Her lips parted in shock. Several couples were in flagrante, oblivious to the many eyes that followed their graphic exhibitions. Or perhaps, as Shay suggested, that was part of their fantasy—knowing they were being observed.
On one of the balconies, a woman was draped over the ornate wrought iron, being spanked by a tall masked man behind her. Her soft cries echoed through the courtyard.
Tessa gasped softly. He was masked, so she was paying him to do that to her. Omigod. Was that—
“Ah,” Shay mu
rmured, interrupting her astonishment. “C’est bon.”
“What?” Surely, he didn’t think—She started to step away from him, to explain that no way was she interested in—But instead of letting her go, he wrapped his hand around her jaw and covered her mouth with his. She let out another gasp of shock. He urged her chin down farther still with his thumb, and his tongue swept in to slick over hers.
He tasted of old bourbon, chicory coffee, and the kind of man who always got what he wanted. She shivered with unwilling excitement. Because right now, what he wanted was ... her.
His kiss was forceful and bold and toe-curlingly delicious. And oh, Lord, so dangerous. And it got her to thinking—in what little part of her mind that could still function—that she owed Laura an apology. Because maybe this whole fantasy thing wasn’t such a bad idea, after all.
Chapter 4
Bon Dieu. For one so unschooled in the ways of the maison, the woman kissed like a practiced odalisque.
Shay’s heart was slamming in his chest, and his cock waking up with a vengeance from its slumber of ennui. Not what he had expected from the little girl who had once clipped him in the jaw rather than kiss him. Perhaps those coins accidentally flung in the fountain all those years ago had worked their magic at last.
Reluctantly, he broke the kiss, giving her lips a final slow lick. But he didn’t let her go. “Vien,” he said and banded his arm around her shoulders. “Come with me.”
Tessa looked as stunned as he felt. Bon. Perhaps a bit more. She almost stumbled as he led her back into the maison’s lobby from the courtyard, past the bar and through toward the grand staircase, to take her upstairs.
“But ... Shay, wait.”
Inside the salon, the heavy beat of the music matched the pounding of his heart. He halted at the foot of the stairs. “What is it, ma douce?”
“I—” She swallowed. “I’m not sure—”
Hesitation? Not with the taste of her surrender still sweet on his tongue. He would have her. Of this, there was no doubt.
He regarded her with growing interest. Her resistance told him her sensual skill was instinctive rather than earned. It made him desire her all the more. “But you want me, non?”
She blinked. Her cheeks turned red, and she looked down. “Yes,” she whispered. “But this is outside my experience. I don’t know if I can do it.”
He was charmed by her genuine reluctance to give in to her natural desires. It turned him on even more. Her reticence pointed to a guileless innocence that was entirely unique in this place of jaded encounters.
Yet despite her somewhat prim façade, he sensed a wanton lurking behind it, hungering to come out and play. And he was just the man to tempt her. He wondered what would finally push her over the edge. Did she want money? Was that her fantasy?
“I’ll double the usual fee if you come with me upstairs,” he offered.
Her eyes darted up, widening. She started to shake her head. “I’m not a—”
He leaned down and murmured in her ear, “Admit it, you want to know what it’s like to be with a man who craves you so badly he’ll pay a small fortune just to be inside you.”
Her blush deepened, and he could see her nipples clearly under the silky fabric of her dress, tight and peaked. He knew it. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. He wasn’t the only one caught in this invisible net of ravenous desire. Almost as if ...
Unbidden, a shiver ran down his spine. Simple lust, he told himself. Their raging attraction had nothing to do with spellbound fountains or irrational curses or imaginary voodoo.
“Do you?” she asked. “Do you want me that much?”
In answer, he pulled her into his arms. With a hand to her backside, he pressed her body into his. Let her feel the thick, unyielding ridge of his arousal. “Take a wild guess, cher.”
Her breath sucked in. He knew he was well-endowed. Enough so to cause many a maidenly heart to flutter. Tessa was no exception.
“Tout quoi ti veut,” he whispered seductively.
This time, he knew exactly what she craved. And he planned to give her all of it. Every last naughty wish.
Unable to restrain his eagerness, Shay swept Tessa up into his arms and mounted the grand staircase before she could respond. She didn’t object. Merci Dieu.
He felt the eyes of everyone in the room upon them and heard more than one feminine sigh. Tonight, as on every other night in the maison, he could have chosen any woman there, and she’d have willingly spread her thighs for him. Yet he felt immeasurably triumphant at the impending conquest of the shy beauty squirming in his arms.
Her dress had ridden up, exposing the delicate white lace of her panties. “Arrête!” he ordered as he carried her up the stairs, bringing her into his world of carnal indulgence. The squirming stopped abruptly. “I want you to kiss me. Now.”
Her green eyes reflected the glitter of the chandelier above them. A subtle change darkened them. “And if I refuse?”
The corner of his lip curled up. Had the game begun already? Excellent.
“We have an agreement. You are mine for tonight,” he reminded her. “My sexual possession, to do with as I please. You must not refuse me anything.” His cock thickened in anticipation of all the ways he would persuade her to do his bidding. “Those are my conditions.”
A quiver traveled through her body. “What if you ask me to do something I don’t want to?”
“Trust me, Tessa. Put yourself in my capable hands,” he said. “I promise you won’t be disappointed.”
After a heartbeat of hesitation, she tightened her arms around his neck and reached her mouth up to his in acquiescence. “All right.” Her tongue swept across the crease of his lips, teasing them open. A groan swirled through him, emerging as a low rumble. Their mouths fused, feeding each other in a ravenous kiss. No need to look where they were going; after a lifetime of climbing these stairs to the seraglio of pleasure chambers, his feet knew the way all on their own.
He reached the landing on the second floor. So immersed was he in the kiss that he almost kept going, all the way up to his private rooms on the third floor. He caught himself just in time. Where was his head? He’d never taken a woman to his private rooms. Ever.
He let her feet drop to the plush Oriental carpet and started to back her forcibly down the hallway, kissing her hard, catching her up against him when she snagged her heel walking backward. “Kick them off,” he ordered, and she let first one, then the other shoe fall away.
He swiftly unzipped her dress and shoved it down. Before she could protest with more than a breathless gasp, it lay behind them in a receding puddle on the hallway floor. Mais, no matter. The observant staff would make sure the clothes found their way back to her by morning. Dieu. Her strapless bra and panties were expensive works of art and sexy as hell.
“Better,” he murmured and crushed her against him.
Her body was a work of art, too, her curves lush, her waist narrow. Smooth and pale, her skin was even silkier than the dress had been. His hands itched to explore her. He walked them faster, kissing her, fumbling the key card out of his jacket pocket.
He found the right door and powered through it, hauling her up against the wall as he slammed the door shut with a swift kick.
She made a throaty, sensual sound and climbed his body like a wild kitten. The wanton had emerged.
He forced himself to stop before he took her right there against the wall. Mon Dieu. They were both breathing hard, their bodies taut with need. But he had no interest in finishing this quickly. He wanted it to last all night.
Taking a steadying breath, he let her kiss him as he marshaled his willpower to slow down. She tasted like heaven itself. And there was a quality to her kisses he’d rarely experienced—complete immersion, no artifice, no self-consciousness at all. Totally there with him in the moment.
“Take off your clothes,” she urged him between kisses, and reached for his lapels.
He let her slide off his jacket. She went
for his shirt buttons, and he allowed her to pop them open one by one. The brush of her hands on his bare skin sent gooseflesh shimmering down his chest. She started to push the shirt from his shoulders.
“Non,” he said and set her down, stepping away from her.
“What’s wrong?” She pressed her body back against the wall, palms flat, looking so incredibly sexy and disheveled—and uncertain—that he nearly weakened.
“Nothing’s wrong. But I’m in charge. You do as I say, not the other way around.”
“Oh,” she said, her expression going even more unsure. “Sorry. I’m, um—”
“A strong woman,” he completed for her. “Used to giving orders, not taking them.”
She blinked. “Two out of three, anyway,” she murmured with a smile.
He smiled back. He liked a strong woman. It made her submission so much sweeter. And she wanted to submit to him. He’d seen it in her eyes as she’d watched the woman on the balcony being disciplined by her lover. That was the scenario that had most captured her attention ... and heated her passion. “Fight me if you like,” he told her. “I enjoy a bit of rough when the woman’s into it.”
“That’s okay,” she said, uncomfortable at his invitation to be taken by force. “I’m here because I want to be with you.”
“Bon,” he said, turned, and walked over to the bed. “I understand. Then let’s begin, shall we?”
Chapter 5
Once again, Tessa felt the blood rush to her face. She didn’t know whether to be excited beyond belief or terrified at what was about to happen.
“Haven’t we started already?” she asked Shay, her heart pounding like a bass drum. She couldn’t exactly remember agreeing to this, but here she was, so she must have.
“Hardly,” he said and plucked a bottle of champagne from a stand by the bed. He turned and regarded her as he expertly worked the cork out, the bottle dripping melted ice onto the deep Oriental carpet. “Walk over to the French doors,” he said, and poured one glass of the amber liquid—just one she noted—before slipping off his shoes and climbing onto the high four-poster bed. He settled against the headboard and gazed at her expectantly.
Wedding Favors Page 2
