Page 97 of Enslaved
“I’m telling the truth, not playing a game!” “Between a man and a woman, Diana, it is always a game.”
“Ohmigod, I said that to you. You’ve waited seventeen hundred years to give me back my words.”
For one brief second he experienced déjà vu. He dismissed it instantly, not wanting to believe her. Yet it was easy to believe they’d been lovers. If he had waited seventeen hundred years, it was to give her back more than words. He had to exercise an iron control to stop himself from snatching her into his arms. Her scent stole to him and he found it irresistible, and faintly familiar. He needed to taste her too, and hold her breasts in the palms of his hands, and anchor himself deep within her, and arouse the wild passion he knew she was capable of.
Stop it!he told himself.The girl has bewitched you.He studied her for long minutes. “I’m curious. What did this Marcus Magnus make of you when he first saw you? Surely he didn’t believe you were from the future?”
“Indeed he did not. I remember I was wearing this hideous dress with panniers and an equally hideous powdered wig. He thought I was a misshapen old woman until—”
Until he saw you naked,Mark added silently.
“For quite a long time he was convinced I was a Druid priestess sent to spy on him.”
“That would make sense considering your peculiar form of dress,” Mark teased.
“That would make sense considering my high degree of intelligence!” she countered.
“You’re quite well read; I’ll concede that much.”
She shrugged. “You saw my father’s library—and coveted it, I might add.”
“Among other things,” he murmured suggestively.
Diana blushed, proving that she knew exactly what else he coveted.
“You probably studied the Romans extensively, as did I,” he suggested.
“No, that’s the strange part. I was never much interested in the Roman period. I often had fantasies about other times in history. I much preferred the Elizabethan or medieval period to our Georgian times.”
“Why?” he asked curiously.
She gave him a scathing glance. “You haven’t the least notion how restrictive life is for a young, unmarried lady. I have no freedom of dress, no freedom of speech, and would have no freedom of thought if Prudence had her way.”
I’m a fanatic about freedom myselfhe thought.It’s the most precious thing we have.
“If you compare our effeminate dandies who emulate Prinny with Elizabethan or medieval men, surely there is no need to ask me why I prefer those times in history.”
“Well, thank you very much.”
“Oh, not you, of course. You’re what a real man should be like, but seldom is.”
So there is a mutual attraction,he thought.
“Tell me,” she said matter-of-factly, “how do you keep in such superb physical condition?”
His mouth curved, flattered that she noticed. “I exercise, swim, ride, and sometimes quarry stone. There’s nothing like physical labor to shape a man. It’s good for the mind as well as the body.”
She cast him a provocative glance. “It certainly seems to be good for yours.”
“The things you say are wildly unconventional. I find the quality attractive.”
“Not only the things I say … I could teach you things you’ve never dreamed of.”
“You are more than flirting with me,” he accused. “You are being deliberately seductive!”
“Part of the game.” She smiled her secret smile.
“When I play with you, it will be according tomyrules,” he warned.
