Seven Secrets of Seduction (17 page)

He laughed without humor. “It doesn't quite flow off my tongue, does it?”

“Everything flows off a tongue lined in silver or gold. It is just not your usual gambit.”

He smiled slowly. “Do you know my usual gambit? What if I'm doing the exact opposite in order to ensnare you?”

“I suppose I will have to take my chances.”

He reached over and idly touched a lock of hair outside of her mask and domino. “‘
I must be here confined by you.'
I want nothing more but for you to take chances with me.”

Her heart picked up speed. “Why?”

“Because you intrigue me.” He tilted his head. “And because I wish it.”

He looked off into the distance a second more, then pushed back his chair and rose. “Come. Let us leave the scrutiny for a time.”

She took his hand, the silk fingers of her glove curling into his leather ones. Both exquisitely fine. Opposite and complementary.

They walked along the main garden corridor, the
revelers parting around them. Miranda ignored the whispers and stares, feeling instead the draw of the dark man next to her.

The dark walks beckoned ahead. The hedges curling in invitation or warning.

He turned, his back to the path, and lifted her hand in his. “Come with me, Miranda.” His voice was coaxing, the call coiling around her.

Come. Open me. Find the answers to what you've always wondered about.

He stepped back onto the dark path. And she followed.

Element #1: It isn't just essential to entice your prey, but you must make absolutely certain that you are the only thing on her mind morning, noon, and night.

The Eight Elements of Enchantment
(work in progress)

 

H
e smiled at her, confidently walking backward without a thought as to where he would place his feet, already seeming to know the route. It should have been a disquieting thought that he had been here before and knew the area so well that he had it memorized, but she simply followed the spell and let him pull her into the darkened corridors. The twining hedges and sleeping flowers.

The lamps were sparse at the beginning of the path, only serving to cast enough light to increase the shadows and make the scene more intimate. The moon was a chipped disk, three-quarters full, increasing the feel.

She was tired of fighting it, fighting the urge to
see, explore, feel.

A small area opened around the path. A place made
just for a couple who wished to stop and enjoy themselves in one way or another. A brass sculpture of a cupid in flight nestled in the green stalks.

His fingers caressed hers. “What would your expert on seduction say about this scene?”

She looked around her, at the way the moonlight caught the closed edges of a flower, like a lover in wait. “You haven't seemed very receptive to my attempts to translate previously. You are either a glutton for punishment, or it is I.”

“Or perhaps I just desire to hear you speak in your enraptured tones. To feel your voice wrap around and squeeze me.” He followed her eyes and touched the edges of the closed petals. “Come, what secret describes this scene?”

“Enjoy everything around you, even if you've seen it a thousand times before?” She said it as lightly as she could, as was often the case around him. She never knew whether to treat his attention as lingering amusement or seriousness.

His fingers touched her chin, lifting it softly. “Even should I see you a thousand times. Each time would be a new lure.”

She swallowed around the tightness in her throat. “You must be lured frequently.”

“Not often enough.” There was a ring of truth to the words that made her heart pick up more speed. Rationally, she knew that she was merely Miranda Chase, commoner, but he always made her feel as if she were something much more.

“You should write your own book, your lordship. Bottle your secrets.”

One brow rose, and his fingers moved along the edge of her chin and brushed the hair behind her ear,
lingering there, the lightest touch of pressure urging her forward.

“I'd rather discover yours.” His fingers slipped down the side of her throat and over her shoulder.

“Oh?” she said faintly.

“Oh, yes.” The words tickled the heated flesh of her cheek. “I want to taste your secrets.” His lips grazed her earlobe and whispered into her core. “Will you let me, Miranda?”

Her fingers rose without conscious thought, up to his shoulders, and curled around, gripping the strength beneath with finality. She could feel his smile as he pulled her against him, his lips touching the skin behind her ear, igniting heat and flame. His hands moved down her back and over her backside, pulling her against him completely below.

Her head tilted back, almost unable to support itself under the onslaught. He bent forward, his lips sucking at the point where the beat of her heart threatened to explode. Luring, hooking, baiting…all secrets to seduction were laid waste by the pure heat of actual desire. The aroma of jasmine and lilies surrounded her. The tendrils of scent slipping over her skin, the viscount's own heady cologne making her feel drunk and branded.

Her skin would undoubtedly smell of the spice forever as his lips trailed across her neck, infusing the scent, and his fingers quested downward, awakening every pore to absorb more.

“I've wanted to see you fully exposed by the moonlight since the first time I saw you.”

“In the shadows of a dusty bookshop,” she said as lightly as she could, gasping as teeth nipped and grazed a sensitive spot behind her ear.

He paused for a moment, but then it was as if the pause had never been, and his hands reached into the soft edges of her hair and tilted her head back farther. “Never in the shadows.”

His lips touched hers, and it was like the moon had shaken off the lingering collar of darkness and turned on its full light. A first kiss, then a second, and soon a tenth, and the count was lost as his fingers stroked down her neck, pulling around to caress her cheeks. Thumbs grazed her throat and curved over her shoulders.

Igniting feelings that could not be captured on the page, nor in an illustration.

“‘
Release me from my bands with the help of your good hands.'
”

Her heart picked up speed as he divested her of her domino with a quick flip of his fingers. As he continued to devour her, leaning into her, backing her up a step, leaning her back over something curved and marble, cold against the hot flesh of her elbow. Her own hand curling around his neck and touching the dark hair there, silky and coarse, at odds with itself.

She had never felt anything like the burst of feeling inside of her. The pulses of heat that followed everywhere he touched.

Her head tipped back as his lips traveled down and over her throat. “I believe this means you have won, your lordship.”

“Oh, I like to think of it as
we.
” He placed a kiss over the beat of her pulse, his lips lingering. “We have won, Miranda.”

His hand wrapped around the back of her nape, lowering her gently so she was lying on the bench, he seated himself next to her, her neck carefully nestled in his hand as he laid her head carefully on the stone.

One hand caressed down the hollow of her throat and over her exposed flesh, down the middle of her chest, her back arching up as if her body was attached to his fingers by strings. Flowing tendrils of flowers swam in her vision, then he was pulling a line down her midsection. Her head tipped back, and she gazed, barely seeing, up at the heavy cracked moon above her as his fingers coasted over the juncture of her legs below.

Her breath caught, and he leaned over her, smiling down at her. “And I assure you that this is only part of the overall seduction. A bite.” His lips grazed her throat. “A promise.” Her chin. “A hope.”

His lips claimed hers once more. His leg was between hers, pressed against her. Where the illicit pictures usually concentrated.

Something built within her at every touch. Something that he had ignited at their first meeting and steadily stoked each day thereafter. Small gasps of sound escaped from her lips.

His eyes connected with hers as he pulled back an inch to look down at her. “Oh, my lost heart.” His lips pulled into the most sensual smile she had ever witnessed. “Such passion under that delicate skin. Barely touched and already reaching for completion.”

His fingers grazed her breasts, over the fabric, her skin scorching beneath the touch. The stars overhead in the dark night sky burned brighter, hotter.

“I think I could go mad touching you. Watching you burn.”

His lips were sweet and hot. Like a dessert she could consume forever. But the heat was hottest below. Against him. He seemed so far away all of a sudden. She pushed against his thigh, and the burn between
her legs became a feverish need. Too hot, the flame of it too close.

The stars grew bigger as if they were expanding just so she could reach them.

Never had she thought such a thing could be possible. To touch the stars. To absorb their brilliance and hold it in the palm of her hand. To feel the light flow over her fingers and through her palms, wrists, the curve of her elbow, down to her core. Curling there, pulsing, before bursting out. The waves of it gentle and fierce, the peaks high, but softly arced.

He drew back and she looked into his eyes, the intense darkness pinning her. “Barely touched. I knew the potential lay there. Ever since…”

His lips stayed parted on the syllable. There was something in his eyes, some emotion that caused a wave to spike within her.

“Since—” Thundering noise rang in her ears, drowning out the sound as his lips moved. The words lost in the ring.

She drunkenly wondered if the earth would continue to shake beneath her body. If the ringing would forever exist.

“Downing!” His fingers tightened against her hip at the outside voice. “I'd know that black head of hair anywhere and that dark back stretched over a woman.” A low, drunken whistle accompanied the salutation of another male voice, as the tremors in the earth became heavy footsteps. The viscount might as well have turned to stone for the lack of movement he suddenly possessed.

“Look at the legs on her. Lucky devil. Good gods, man, where do you dig them up?”

His back was to the men, and his face drew to
shadow as the moonlight melted around him, hiding his expression from her. “I picked this one up in the back of a dusty shop,” he said, coolly, frostbite in the clip of each syllable.

Miranda's heart stopped beating.

The man laughed. “Good one. Where did you really find her?”

“Perhaps you aren't looking in the right places then, if you have to ask.” The viscount's fingers curved into a fist at her hip, his clipped tones harsh, as if he was about to do someone irreparable harm.

Or maybe just simply to crush her with a careless motion of his perfect fingers.

Another man joined the chortle. “I have something for her to sweep when she's through with your heavy load.”

Mortification joined the crushing feeling, and she hid her face in the heavy shadows.

“She's a princess,” one of the men whispered, somewhat drunkenly.

“I know that,” the vocal man snapped. “And I have something for her to wear on her crown when Downing's done with her.” The man guffawed. “Whoo. Always look for Downing's scraps, I say.”

The viscount abruptly stood and turned. She immediately swept her legs to the other side of the bench, away from the men, and set about putting her clothing to rights, head tucked down.

Another sudden shaking of the earth had her looking up and behind her. Only the viscount's tight back remained in view, the other men gone in a rush of feet. He turned, a distant and cold expression on his face. Forbidding and fierce. The fleeting glimpse of the same dark emotion that had crossed his face during
his mother's visit flitted through his eyes again.

He held out a hand. “Come.”

She stared at it for a moment, the remaining warm feelings receding in the cool night.

His hand moved slightly, still outstretched. “It was the fastest way to do it. I apologize.” His tone was cool, formal, his eyes stormy, but distant.

The fastest way to do what? Get rid of them? She studied his hand a moment more, then met his eyes. “But are you being disingenuous in your apology this time as well?”

His hand dropped. He stayed silent for a second, then raised his hand back to her.

“I've never meant it more.”

He looked as if he were at war with himself. As if his words had multiple meanings. She watched him another moment, nodded, and took his hand. His fingers wrapped around hers, firmly, a caress of his thumb to the back of her hand, then tugged her forward.

They strode back along the path of the walk. Two steps from stepping out of the moonlight and back into the lamplight, he turned to her. He secured her mask once more, his fingers lingering on a lock of hair, his knuckles brushing her cheek. She unconsciously leaned into the touch. The tips of his fingers stroked lightly, gently, then curled into a fist as he looked away.

He took her hand and strode into the merriment once more. But the languid pace of earlier was gone, an urgency to be gone and on to other things in its place.

Faces and colors blended together as they strode through the crowd. Miranda barely processed any of it through the aftermath of confusion and embarrassment. The vestiges of tightly-wound thrill.

Benjamin jumped down and opened the carriage door immediately upon seeing them, and she stumbled inside.

A strange silence pervaded the interior. The viscount's words as she'd drawn shaky breaths in the garden at complete odds with his demeanor at present.

“An odd night for this much moonlight,” the viscount said, almost contemplatively, his face still closed in the flickering low lamplight and shadows as they began to move.

“Yes. And as it is, the moonlight hides as much as it reveals,” she said in a near whisper, the conflicting, heavy feeling draped over the air.

He reached forward and touched the curl at her temple, pulling it around the mask, brushing her cheek. “Each time a new lure.”

She wished she could see his eyes, so dark in the shadows of the closed carriage.

“‘
In this bare island by your spell.'
” His fingers slipped from her cheek and fell to the padded bench, the Shakespearean spell formed by his third such quote lingered behind. She clasped her hands tightly together, uncertainty and longing running through her in equal measures.

It didn't take long for the carriage to reach her uncle's store. The early-evening and late-night traffic had cleared and the late, late-night traffic had not yet started.

The viscount's hand reached out again, then drew back. “Good evening, Miss Chase.”

She felt a divide open and stretch between them, though she didn't understand it, as she stepped through the portal and onto the common pavement below.