Part 28 (2/2)
Mac glanced around, fidgeting, and suddenly joined him by the table. She selected a cracker and put it down again. Nervous, his Maca”beginning to think she'd gotten herself in a little too deep.
”Such rooms are well known to the powerful men of our fair city,” he drawled, ”and to a certain cla.s.s of women.”
She picked up one of the winegla.s.ses. ”I guess they showed us to the wrong room.”
”Did they?” His anger was fading, replaced by speculation and some other emotion less vehement but equally acute. Her nearness was reminding him of last nighta”and of the jungle. Heat. And pa.s.sion.
”Mac, Mac,” he said, shaking his head. ”What do you want?”
She rolled the stem of the winegla.s.s between her fingers. ”Actually,” she said, ”I was rather hoping for a good French dinner.”
”Are youa hungry?”
She set down the winegla.s.s, provoking him with the deep brown warmth of her eyes. ”Ravenous,” she whispered. But she looked away again, and he took a moment to study her: the slenderness of her figure in the gown, the thrust of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s above the bodice, the pulse beating so intriguingly at the hollow of her throat, the paleness of her skin.
d.a.m.nation. Had Perry put her up to seducing him, making him forget all about Caroline and the proposal? Liam knew Mac hadn't met the Englishman at the Palace; Liam's contacts there had a.s.sured him of that. And he'd kept her close at the Gresham residence, with Caroline, since Perry's disappearance.
But Perry obviously wasn't gone from the city, fled after a botched murder attempt. He'd found out about Liam's invitation to Caroline. And now, one way or another, he was using Mac to stop the proposal.
”We both know Caroline's not coming,” Liam said.
He found himself lifting his hand, touching Mac's cheek, brus.h.i.+ng his fingers across her soft skin.
She was very still under his caress. For a seductress she was remarkably restrained. Except for the dress, which had clearly been chosen to display her charms. She hadn't been very adept at the business in the jungle, either.
But it had been good between them. d.a.m.n it to h.e.l.l.
”It's not too late, Mac,” he said.
”I'm glad you feela””
”Not too late for you to leave.” He dropped his hand, sucked in a lungful of air and let it out again. ”Go,” he rasped. ”Go now, and we'll forget this happened.”
”The way we forgot about the jungle?”
”How did it happen in the jungle?”
She jerked up her chin. ”I was too much for you then, and I still am. That's why it's all words with you. That's what you fall back on when you can't do anything else.”
”Why, you harridana””
”I said it before. I scare you, Liam. Isn't that why you didn't finish that day in the jungle? Couldn't keep it upa the macho faade, I mean?”
His mouth dropped open. Did she actually thinka The blood rushed into his face and, at the same time, to another place entirely.
The devil. Incredible as it seemed, her defiance and insults aroused him even as she derided his manhood. She had that much inexplicable power over him.
He remembered her pa.s.sion in the jungle, that mingling of boldness and innocence that had puzzled and inflamed him, the catlike strength of her slender figure. He remembered the eagerness and wetness of her opening to him without maidenly modesty, no reluctance, wanting as he wanted.
And then her kiss in the ballroom, bringing it all back into sharp focus.
His trousers pulled tight over his groin. Words, was it? Did she think that was all he had to prove himself? He scanned the room behind Mac, noted the position of the wide velvet settee with its mounds of pillows. Part of his mind was coolly planning even as his body was hot and hard with desire.
Very well. He'd teach Mac a lessona”the one he'd never completed in the jungle. And this was a lesson he'd enjoy to the fullest.
”You doubt my manhood?” he challenged.
”There's little about you I don't doubt, O'Shea.”
He moved toward her. She took a step back, paused, and retreated another step when he kept coming. Right toward the setteea”right where he wanted her.
”Then you need proof, my th.o.r.n.y Rose,” he said. The proof he intended to give her throbbed and ached for release.
Her smile was a little shaky. ”And what would that be?”
A few more steps. She wasn't watching where she was going. ”No mere words, Mac. Something you can touch. Something you can hold in your hands.”
Her gaze flickered down. His erection strained under her inspection like a restive stallion. ”I've, uh, always been a skeptic,” she murmured.
”But not for much longer, I promise you.”
At that moment the backs of her legs b.u.mped the settee. With a soft grunt of surprise she sat down on her bustle. Liam wasted no time. He sprang the remaining few feet and pinned her down among the pillows.
Her first instinct was to fight. He could feel the tension in her bodya”a tension that relaxed all at once, as if she had commanded her wayward muscles to obey. Her eyes were wide, but not with fear.
Her eyes. He'd forgotten what beautiful eyes she had. A man could drown in them, dark and fathomless as they were, and lose himself forever.
But he wasn't here to lose himself. Carefully he began to unb.u.t.ton her gloves, peeling them inch by inch away from her hands. When he had bared both of them, he kissed the undersides of her wrists.
”Proof, Mac,” he said. He clasped her hand and guided it down between their bodies. She stiffened again.
”Surely you're not afraid?” he taunted.
Only her chin twitched as he helped her fingers find their mark. That hesitant contact was sweet agony. He felt her mold the cloth of his trousers to the shape of him, trace his length hesitantly and then with greater boldness.
”Okay,” she said. ”I'm beginning to be convinced.”
”Of what?” He hissed as she touched him again, more boldly still. ”Tell me, Mac.”
”That, uha you're not all talk.”
”What else?”
<script>