The extravagant collecti.., p.16
The Extravagant Collection, page 16
“Yes, sometimes I do that,” I say, my voice feathery as I imagine him having his way with me. As I imagine he’d want to. I bet he likes taking just enough control. The same amount I want to relinquish.
He hums approvingly. “Good to know.”
That heady feeling winds through my body, that sense that we’re on all the same wavelengths. Still, I toss out a question. “And why’s that? Do you like having control, then?”
The man takes his time before he answers, almost as if the reply is taking shape seductively on his tongue. “Sometimes I do.”
A shiver dances down my spine, the sparks of pleasure zipping through me. I study his gaze, trying to read his eyes behind that mask. They’re dark brown. Chocolate. Rich. Gorgeous. “Sometimes? I doubt that. You seem like an all-the-time control guy.”
He gives a light laugh. “Do I?”
“Yes. You do.”
He steps closer again, raising a hand, running it down my arm. Oh, holy hell. His touch is electric, and my breath catches as he says, “By day, I like having control. Often by night too. But it’s not a requirement.”
His voice is seductive, dreamy, and a little gruff too. It’s sandpaper and stubble. It’s whiskey and cigars. His confidence is like an enticing cologne—one I want to inhale.
He brushes a strand of hair off my shoulder, reminding me why I left it down. For this—for touch. He takes a beat, then asks, “And by night, what do you like?”
My pulse spikes, shooting all the way through the roof. “By night, I like what we all like,” I say, wildly turned on from the conversation. From his . . . obvious seduction. One I don’t want to end.
He runs a finger along the feathers in my mask. “And what’s that, lovely bird?”
I look at his full lips, wondering how they taste, how they’d feel on my skin. “At night, I like to be surprised.”
Those lips spread into a mischievous smile as he holds out a hand. “Dance with me.”
“That’s not a surprise,” I toss back saucily.
“But maybe it’ll become one,” he says, his voice gliding over my skin as his seduction clearly continues.
Maybe it will.
Maybe I want it to.
I take his hand, and he leads me to the dance floor.
He sets one palm on my waist, and we waltz to the music, joining the other couples moving elegantly around us under the lights, sophistication, and smoke. Eliza is nowhere to be seen. She’s gone, and so is the man with the beard.
But I’ve no time to think of Eliza when my dance partner spins me, then dips me, letting my back curve into an arch. “You fibbed,” I say, pouting.
“Did I?” he asks, a naughty tone of mischief in his voice. He keeps me in this position, bent back, under his control, waiting.
I don’t hate it.
In fact, I rather like it.
My skin turns hotter. My heart rate races.
“Yes. You lied. Because you waltz perfectly,” I say as he tugs me up and draws me close, flush against his hard frame. My God, he is hard everywhere, and I mean everywhere.
He strokes his fingers along my bare shoulders. “Perhaps I’m improvising. Or maybe I sensed that you wanted to be surprised.”
I want to be touched. Judging from the way my skin sings under his fingertips, I want to be touched everywhere. Still, I manage to keep up the banter, saying, “You have me there.”
“I’d like to have you in many places.”
Tingles burst through me. Confidence is so sexy. So alluring. Confidence is the ultimate aphrodisiac. “Would you?”
“I absolutely would,” he says, as the music shifts to something simpler. Not quite a bump and grind but a tune that’s easy to sway and move to.
This time, he brings me closer, and I am giddy, lit up. I am drunk on this night. And maybe even getting a little tipsy on him when he stares at my lips, then says, “Your smile is radiant.”
“So is yours.” I lift a finger, feeling daring, tracing it along the top of his lip. A shudder moves through him as I touch him.
“You’re quite bold,” he says, nipping at my finger, then moaning lightly around it before letting go.
“Does it bother you?”
“Not in the least. But maybe I’d like to be bold with you.” He tightens his grip on my waist, his fingers playing, moving across my corseted costume. I swallow roughly. He must know what he’s doing to me. “Maybe I’d like to kiss this radiant smile right off of your beautiful face, make you hot and bothered, gasping, begging me to touch you more.”
“You’d do that to me?”
“Does that surprise you?”
I shake my head, my body buzzing, my head hazy, the taste of possibility on my lips. “No. It turns me on.”
“Good. That’s what I want to do to you. And I’m a man who knows what he wants.”
I expect him to say, I want you. That’s the next logical statement.
But he doesn’t, because a blue-eyed man cuts in, tapping on my shoulder. I turn in his direction. He’s the man with the Phantom mask. Up close, his jaw is chiseled, his face clean-shaven, his lips kissable. “May I have this dance?”
My throat is dry. And my skin hums all over. From the first man, and now the second one. They are opposites—one has dark eyes, one light. One’s voice is gruff and raspy, and the other’s is deep, melodic, and British.
But both are panty-melting.
Two Prince Wickeds.
As the English one draws me against him, the American man moves behind me ever so briefly, pressing his chest against my back before he steps away.
Suddenly, my mind is racing to lands I never thought I’d want to explore.
In a flash, in a heartbeat, I do.
4
DANIEL
A Few Minutes Earlier
Some might call me a gamesman.
They wouldn’t be wrong. Anything with a bit of strategy or a touch of cunning holds a particular appeal.
A bet, a night, an opportunity—it’s almost as if I’m drawing a bow across a violin, teasing out a lovely melody.
The start of a symphony.
One that begins with spotting a beautiful woman, admiring the waves of her hair, the cut of her jaw, the curves of her body.
But that’s not all.
That’s not even what interests me the most about the fairer sex. Everything that matters is found in the eyes. And in the lips.
Eyes are hard to see with masks on, so in many ways I’m handicapped.
But that’s fine by me. I like it when the game is a little harder, when I have to think and act smart. To make choices that might backfire.
As I regard the guests—this one, that one, perhaps another one—my gaze returning to the woman in the peacock mask, I know what it’s going to take for this dalliance to work the way I want it to. I’ll let Cole think he spotted her. He’ll dance with her first. Then I’ll cut in.
The symphony plays out in my head, the music growing stronger, louder, suggesting how the evening might unfold.
Because she’s the one.
It’s as clear as night.
She didn’t know it before she left her home, but she was destined to meet us tonight.
The woman in the black corset with a diamond necklace wrapped lovingly around her neck—Could there be any more of a sign that she’d adore long, lingering kisses on that supple neck?—is most definitely the one for us.
As we drink champagne and survey the dance floor, I say nothing to Cole to indicate I’ve found her. I simply let my gaze occasionally drift her way. Part of my plan to let him think he saw her first. Eventually, as Cole and I chat about everything and nothing, which is what we usually do, he keys in on her too.
Perfect.
It’s like leading a horse to water, as he says, “I believe it’s time to ask someone for a dance.”
He sets down his champagne.
I take a drink of mine. “Best of luck to you, mate.”
He raises an eyebrow above his black mask. “You think I need luck?”
“We all need luck. We all need luck every second of every day. Never underestimate the value of luck.”
He shoots me a doubtful grin, then heads over to the woman.
We both believe in hard work, but Cole doesn’t know what it’s like to have luck stolen from you. As I finish off my champagne, my eyes drift briefly to the long, jagged scar that runs between the first two knuckles on my right hand, all the way down to my wrist.
Luck is everything.
In this city, hell, in all the cities all around the world, you have to make luck work for you. Tonight, I let my best friend and business partner think he’s making the first move. It doesn’t hurt anyone for him to believe that.
For a few minutes, I soak in the sights of the party, the bodies moving and swaying, the heat rising in the room, the way women and men collide into each other. Hands slide down waists, up backs, into hair.
This party is so much more than a masquerade.
Or maybe that’s exactly what it is—a mask.
A mask for more.
How many others are here to kiss, to touch, to play?
To grind, to fuck, to come?
From the look of the dance floor, the answer is plenty.
This is not a party for the chaste.
It’s a party for the debauched.
Feeling like I belong, my eyes settle on the woman in Cole’s arms. Her radiant grin. Her pretty mouth. Her hair I want to pull, breasts I want to explore, arse I’d love to smack.
Provided she gives as good as she gets.
And by give, I mean with her mouth. With words. With the things she says.
Looks only go so far.
Wit is what turns me on sky-high.
So does opportunity, and tonight I plan to engineer it the way I want it to unfold.
Once they’ve danced for long enough, it’s my turn. I stride across the room, purposeful, determined. I tap on her shoulder and flash a smile, the only part of me that’s fully visible from behind this Phantom mask. In my most dashing voice, I ask, “May I have this dance?”
Playing the part of the gentleman, Cole steps away and offers her to me.
My eyes stay on her. She’s hard to read behind that mask. The mesh covers her eyes, and I can barely tell what color they are. But still, even behind the mesh, a hint of color shines through. Like a clear sky. I can see more in those eyes too. A gleam of mischief. A spark of desire.
“Yes, you may,” she says.
I take her hand and close the distance, but not completely. One should always leave a little something to a woman’s imagination. Dancing ought to stimulate desire, suggest entanglements. I leave a few inches between us, the air already crackling and charged. She swallows, her throat moving, a flush darkening her décolletage.
Perfect.
She’s already in the mood to play. Cole moves behind her, pausing briefly at her back. Perhaps pressing against her. Giving her a taste of what she might have.
Something that I would very much enjoy having with her. My favorite indulgence.
But first, let’s see if she’s as captivating as I believe.
Cole moves away, off the dance floor and out of sight. And now it’s just this lovely woman and me. “I was watching you dance earlier,” I tell her, not mincing words, not wasting time.
Her lips curve in a tiny grin. “Did you like what you saw?”
She lifts her chin, her pretty pink lips tilted up toward me, parted the slightest bit, almost like she’s waiting for a kiss. Yet her lips also contain the slightest hint of a question. She’s not ready to kiss yet, and that’s even more alluring.
“I was admiring your dancing. You’re quite good at spinning around the dance floor,” I say in a teasing tone.
“Does that mean you’ve had your eye on me all night?”
I nod, owning it. “Yes. Does that bother you?”
With a coy grin, she asks, “Should it bother me?”
I shake my head. “The opposite. I hope it arouses you.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Oh yes, I believe I chose well. She has so much fire in her. Just the way I like it.
The way we like it.
“I would like to know,” I retort, inching a little closer. “Because I was drawn to you immediately.”
Even from behind the mask, I can tell she rolls her eyes, and that was my intention—to wind her up.
“Is that a line?”
“Do you think it’s a line?”
“It seems like it might be one.”
“It would only be a line if I said something cliché like I can’t take my eyes off you,” I say, dragging out the words, making them exaggerated, as if I’m some sort of pickup artist. “Or if I said, I can’t see anyone else in the room but you.”
She tilts her head, perhaps a little perplexed. “Are you saying neither of those are true?”
“What I’m saying is those are rubbish reasons to tell a woman you’ve had your eye on her all night,” I say, as I slide my hand down her back toward the curve of her arse. The music pulses around us, thrumming over us, behind us, through us.
“Then what’s a non-rubbish reason?” she asks, a little breathy, a lot intrigued.
I spin her around then drag her close, her stomach against mine, but still the slightest bit of distance between her breasts and my chest. My hand travels the other direction now, going north, my fingertips spreading across the fabric of her corset. She shivers as my hands play along her back. “I’ve had my eye on you all night because you’re the most interesting woman in the room.”
She shivers against me, a full-body tremble that seems to start in her collarbone and radiate down her chest. I can feel her shuddering against me. My God, she’s like an instrument, and she’ll be gorgeous to play.
She’s a cello, and I want to feel her against me, under me, around me.
“And what makes me so interesting to you?”
Lifting a hand, I touch the feathers. “For starters, this mask. It says you’re bold and outgoing.”
“Does it now?”
“It does, and you are,” I whisper.
“I am,” she answers, as if a little mesmerized.
I trace the stones around her neck. “This necklace tells me you love beautiful things, but you also like to be that beautiful thing. To have people look at you.”
She takes a beat, her breath ghosting over her lips, then she whispers, “Yes.”
I return to the starting point—the back of her dress. “And then there’s this corset. I find your choice to wear it fascinating.”
She swallows. “Why?”
“Because you have to know it’s captivating.”
She seems to recover her composure, to remember how to flirt again, because she says, “Do you have a thing for fashion?”
I shake my head, laughing, as I trace the ties along her corset. “These ties—they make me think about what I want to do with them.”
“Tie me up?” she offers in a feathery voice, one that perhaps reveals her own interest in that prospect.
“I would love to tie you up. But I was actually thinking about what I want to do to them with my teeth.”
The expression in her face shifts from heat to rabid curiosity.
Another rough swallow comes from her, then she says, “What do you want to do to them with your teeth?”
I move in closer, my lips near her ear as I whisper, “Untie them one by one, then nip your back, lick your spine, and drag my mouth along that gorgeous neck of yours. Devouring you.”
She sways, nearly falling against my chest. “I would like that,” she says in a whisper. Then she glances around, as if she’s just remembered where she is. “But what about your friend?”
I arch a brow. “How do you know he’s my friend?”
“Because the two of you were staring at me at the same time.”
I can’t contain a grin. She’s onto us, and I fucking love it. “So you think we know each other?”
“I think you do. I think you like doing many things together.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, and I enjoyed dancing with him too,” she says, tightening her hands on my shoulder, her pink lips turning pouty. “And perhaps I don’t want to have to choose between the two of you.”
I finger the strands of her hair, so soft, so silky. “Love, whoever said you had to choose?”
With that, I offer her a hand. She takes it, clasping her fingers against mine. I tip my forehead toward the hallway at the end of the ballroom and guide her away from the dance floor, around the corner, and down a quiet alcove, where I find my longtime friend and business partner.
Cole leans casually against the wall. He’s holding a small black book, one he looks up from as we approach.
The woman blinks at him. “Is that a little black book?”
He gives her the wryest of wry grins, brandishing the small leather-bound book. “Maybe it is. Should I put your number in it?”
“That depends on whether you’re going to want to see me again.”
“Do you want me to see you?”
“I’m not really thinking about the next time. I’m thinking about the fact that I’m leaving in fifteen minutes. And I’m wondering what’s going to happen in this alcove in the next fourteen minutes and fifty-five seconds.”
Cole grins. Even from behind his mask, there’s heat in his eyes. She’s everything he wants. “It’s F. Scott Fitzgerald. One of my favorite writers.” He tucks it into the inside pocket of his jacket, then stalks over to her and raises a hand.
He cups her cheek.
She gasps.
I run my palm along the ties of her corset. What would it be like to undo them one by one? To watch them fall open, to run my mouth along her back? Would she like that?
I decide to find out. Standing behind her, I gently brush her hair away from her neck. Then I whisper, “Would you like me to kiss your neck?”
As if we’ve done this before, as if we know exactly how this will work, Cole closes the rest of the distance between himself and our lady, his lips dangerously close to hers as he whispers, “And I’d love to kiss your lips.”
Her voice is a barren plea. “Yes. Please. Both.”
