Page 30 of The Secrets He Keeps

Chapter Nine

When she stepped fromhis arms, Erik experienced a moment of panic but loosened his hold anyway, allowing his hands to glide over her curves in a sensual caress that made her eyes spark beautifully and her lips curve with promise.

Then she took his hand in hers and turned to lead him across the room. Without a word, she continued from the library and down the hall toward the rear of the house, away from the main stairs that that would have taken them back down to the party. Next, they ascended a narrow, twisting staircase to the top floor of the building and another hallway with red carpeting and brocade-covered walls that contained several closed doors.

Despite the muffled sounds of revelry that could be heard from below and the suspicion that there were others enjoying the privacy and quiet behind each of the closed doors they passed, he felt as though it were just the two of them. In the world that surrounded them but not of it. He always seemed to feel like that when he was with her.

At the end of the hall was a door, closed and locked.

Sending him a seductive glance over her shoulder that had his stomach tightening and his cock thickening in a rush, she withdrew a single key on a silken black cord from a concealed pocket in her gown.

The room beyond was a luxurious sitting room done in more of the lady’s signature scarlet but accented with gold rather than black. Gold threads in the embroidered settee, gold in the flames rolling gently in the hearth, gold brocade drapes covering the windows, and a large gold filigreed mirror on the wall between.

The room was gilded fire.

And as Pendragon led the way forward, he acknowledged how perfect a setting it was for her. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her in the stunning gown, her hips swaying confidently beneath liquid flowing silk. Closing the door behind him, he leaned back against it, watching her. Admiring everything about her as she stopped in front of the oversized mirror hanging almost directly across the room from him.

Green eyes snared his in the reflection as she lifted her hands to tuck a stray curl back up into her coiffure. Her smile was full of feminine mystique and sensual power as she allowed her fingertips to trail slowly down along her slim neck, across her collarbone, and lower, to the soft upper swells of her breasts.

As he watched from behind her, the mirrored reflection making him feel farther away than he was in truth, she slid her index finger along the top of her bodice, where a thin edge of black lace peeked from under the red silk.

Lust swirled heavily in his body, tensing his muscles, clenching a fist around his throat while blood thundered to his cock.

The woman could put him to his knees if she tried. Part of him wished she would. He would readily offer every pleasure to her, prostrate himself at her feet for the privilege of a single taste.

But he understood that wasn’t what she wanted. Nor was it what she needed. She’d no doubt had countless men bowing to her beauty and her pleasure, tossing themselves at the mercy of her desires.

Their intense mutual attraction had grown into something far more complex than sexual power dynamics and pleasures of the flesh alone. He’d long accepted the connection between them. The inevitability of their joining and the undeniable enjoyment that would be found when they finally came together. As two people who might appear to be rivals on the outside but were well-matched in all the ways that mattered. Their pasts had been charted through decades of experiences and ambitions and loneliness to bring them both to this night. To each other.

Her fingers moved nimbly along the tiny hidden fasteners running down the front of her gown. With each little pop of the hook releasing from eyelet, the stiff bodice began to gape.

And Erik’s mouth began to water.

Lush, pale pink flesh. Soft and full. She wore nothing beneath the gown and every bit she exposed to him was more tantalizing than the last. As his gaze hungrily devoured the sensual feast she revealed so cleverly and torturously, he felt as though he were being offered something no man could ever prove worthy of receiving.

Pulling the corseted bodice free of her body, she dropped the thing to the floor.

The smooth skin of her torso gleamed like marble in the dusky golden firelight. Her breasts were wonderfully full, the tips crested with dark rose-colored nipples. Her waist was narrow but soft in a way he wanted to rub his face against.

Still facing the mirror and now bared from waist up, she reached behind her back to where a tied ribbon secured the skirts around her narrow waist. The position thrust her breasts higher, making them jiggle delightfully.

Reluctantly lifting his gaze from her creamy bosom, he noted the small tilt of a satisfied smile curling her mouth. The consummate seductress. Her sexual assurance was intoxicating, leaving him incapable of doing anything but staring with clenched teeth.

Understanding his predicament entirely, she gave a soft chuckle before pulling the ribbon of her skirts, freeing the red silk to fall in a billowy scarlet cloud to the floor.

A powerful jolt of need shot through him. But he forced himself to remain unmoving.

Clad only in an underskirt of transparent black lace that did next to nothing to conceal the lush flare of her hips or the long lines of her shapely legs, she turned to face him. The shadow of pale gold curls at the juncture of her thighs nearly did him in.

With herculean effort, he swallowed the deep groan of hunger pushing up from his chest and managed to utter three true words. “You slay me.”

A blonde brow arced. “Isn’t that what dragons do? Surely, you didn’t expect me to spare you my flames.”

“I’d willingly drown in your fire. But I’d prefer we dance in the flames together.”

Sparks lit her gaze as she started toward him. Slowly but with undeniable purpose. Her steps languid. The movement of her body sultry. Sensual confidence flowed through her form, holding her shoulders back as her hips swayed.

Stopping halfway across the room, she lowered her chin and smiled with sinful promise as she beckoned him with a curl of her finger.

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