She rolled her eyes and looked bored. “He’s not mine, he’s clearly everyone’s!”
What would she do if he really was hers? What would it be like to have a man like that, full of passion and virility focused entirely on her? The idea was intoxicating as much as she fought with herself about it.
The trouble was, she was much too sensible to expose herself to a man who was honest about being shallow when it came to relationships and commitments. Yet that was the very man that was exciting. He dared to do what he felt like. Dared to experience pleasures where they were given. Clear that he was not interested in settling down with any one person. The probability was that, much like Marsden who she loved dearly, the man was not capable of it.
Marsden wore that knowing look again. She’d asked to go straight home after seeing that kiss in the salon. Not the response of someone who was worldly, nor someone thinking about having a liaison. The difficulty was that she didn’t know many rakes and those she did know, she was not remotely attracted to. Except for the Russian, he was a rake and she was attracted to him a great deal. And, given that she’d almost decided she needed a liaison to remove the last vestiges of her ignorance about the world of love and passion, being attracted to only the Russian was rather annoying.
“Don’t take it all so seriously Seph. It was a parlor game, nothing more. A room full of people. You saw it yourself, he swept her up for a hoot from the crowd. If the man were serious it would have been done somewhere private. And trust me, you would never have known about it.”
“He’s not mine and I don’t care.” Seph fluttered her fan. She did care and she was irritated with herself that she did. It pointed to the fact that she was still thinking in very conservative terms. Marsden had a fluidity about him. He moved from their world of rules and propriety into one where ‘people took their pleasure seriously’, where expectations and commitments weren’t set.
“You paid your dues as a wife. As a widow you have latitude. Have a bit of fun.” His gaze scanned the room, “Ahh, the Dolton Twins, I love how they fight over me. If you will excuse me.”
Seraphina watched as Marsden strode over and unfolded his charm. He was devastating when he set his mind to it.
“So, what is the relationship between you two? Lovers past, or childhood sweethearts?” Ilya spoke from close over her shoulder.
She groaned and it sounded less pained than it should have. His cologne, faint and fresh was most likely the reason. Ballrooms were stuffy and although not spoken about, could smell. He was a delicious hint of byzantine. She would be happy to bury her face into his neck and fill her lungs. If she was not still annoyed with him and his free ways.
“Go away,” she growled.
“We got off on the wrong foot,” Ilya replied as he pressed through the people close around them to stand in front of her.
“We didn’t get off on any foot. You are a parasite nibbling at any scrap of feminine flesh that comes across your path,” she hushed at him so those circling them backs turned wouldn’t hear.
“As I recall,” he leaned forward and whispered, “when I nibbled on you, you nibbled back.”
Her heart lurched. His lips were deliciously addictive, his tongue…devastating. “I hope that wasn’t what you call a kiss. I remember something wet and soggy lipped.” She remembered something electric and alluring. Something that rewrote her body’s expectations of pleasure. Violins strummed the start of the next set.
Ilya barked a laugh and others turned. He tugged her dance card from her hand and printed his name for a waltz.
“Don’t bother to show up for it. I will not dance with you.” She wanted to though. What did that say about her? Not doing the very things she wanted to because—why? He wasn’t serious? He flirted…outrageously. The truth was that every inch of her wanted to feel his hold again. Smell the warm scent of him as he powered her across the dance floor.
“Coward.”
“Oh please!” She swallowed. She was.
“Feeling brave?”
She scoffed. Turning her back to him pretending to search for someone.
“It was a parlor game,” he said, his voice at her shoulder serious.
Seph watched the throng, the dancers take their places as the music started. “It’s not my concern.”
He leaned in. “I want it to be your concern…” he whispered, his breath tickling over her skin making the hairs along her arms rise.
She didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know what to think.
Yes... Yes... Yes... pounded in her thoughts, but she hadn’t the nerve to jump. Wasn’t sure if she was making a fool of herself with a man who bounced from one woman to the next like some kind of bumble bee.
“Come play with me Seraphina.” He murmured in his thick-as-honey accent. “Have a taste of what you saw at Hells’ Hall. Let it be me who shows you, no strings attached.”
No strings attached. How did someone do that? That was the game she didn’t know how to play, but one he excelled at.
The throng around them pressed tighter, a surge as the dances twirled wider, pressing Ilya to her in the squeeze. The hard lines of him pressed against her as the crowd momentarily locked them together. The backs of her fingers pressed against his member. Her eyes widened. His went dark. No one could see what happened below shoulder height, with them all pressed together.
His hand wrapped around her wrist, turned her hand so her palm pressed against him, and held it there. “Play with me Seraphina.”
Excitement, desire, the need to be more than the prim miss her life had made her.
“You are deranged.” She tried to pull her hand away and failed as his grip held her wrist fast.
“I am well equipped for the game.”
And just like that, so close to his body, the heat of him, the raw excitement of what he dared, she was back in the corridor at Hells Hall her thoughts full of Ilya and the pleasures he promised.
Seph swallowed hard. Didn’t even try to hide the way the words hit her. “Ilya…” the smallest sound. Her toes at the edge of a cliff, the earth beneath them crumbling, she needed to either step right back and away, or take her chances and leap.
He dipped his head down to her ear, the wooded scent of him intoxicating. “It’s not only very fat,” he rumbled in his accent, “it’s also very…long.”
Blood pounded in her ears. Her body suddenly too hot, her skin too sensitive. People pressed around them on all sides. Talking over the music. Looking at the dance floor, the cause of the squeeze.
Her fingers, heaven help her, reached out and traced him, traced the exceptionally fat and exceedingly long member and her core clenched.
His face, so dark and stormy, right in front of her. Yet with not a chance of feeling those lips here in the crush.
“I am not sure I know how to play,” she whispered.
Heart hammering, she squeezed his length and watched his eyes roll back. She ran her nails over his dress pants and along the length of him. Felt his flesh firm, thicken, and lengthen. Imagined what he would feel like inside her. This man pressing her down with his weight, his lips delivering those bone melting kisses and this, this…cock moving inside her.
“I think you know more about playing the game than you think.” He tried to move back but couldn’t.