“I came in the carriage.”
“Alone?”
“No, Thaddeus accompanied me.”
“I’ll wring his neck,” Kyle muttered.
“No, please… I asked him to bring me.”
Incredulously, Kyle shook his head. He couldn’t quite work out what his wife was doing in a bordello, but he certainly wasn’t going to turn down what she appeared to be offering. If, of course, that was really what she was offering. It was hard to believe, so unlike the cold-blooded woman he had convinced himself she was.
“All right,” he said. His mouth curved in a faint smile as he crossed his arms over his powerful chest. “I’m waiting.”
Selena stood unmoving, unsure how to respond. The intent way Kyle was looking at her made her forget every point of Angel’s sage advice. His hazel eyes were narrowed on her body, reflecting the glint of candlelight. She felt undressed, naked, vulnerable, even though she was partially clad. “I don’t know what to do,” she said in a small voice.
“Drop,” he replied helpfully, “whatever that is you’re clutching so desperately.”
She hesitated for a moment, then obediently let the wrapper fall. It was all she could do to stand there motionless under Kyle’s inspection. Her corset came to the top of her hips, her shift to midcalf, but her shoulders and upper bosom were bare, and her legs were clad only in dark silk stockings. Kyle’s bold stare assessed her frankly, raking her with practiced detachment, openly speculating.
When his gaze focused intently on her barely covered breasts, an uncontrollable blush covered Selena’s entire body. Which was absurd, she realized. Kyle had seen her without her clothes on; indeed, he had thoroughly explored her body with more than his gaze. Selena bit her lip in consternation. She was making a terrible mess of this. Kyle would send her packing if she couldn’t do better than act like a frightened innocent.
“What comes next?” he asked dryly, as if to underscore her thought.
Give him a drink o’ brandy to turn him up sweet, Angel had said. She could at least do that much. Seeing the skeptical smile that hovered around the corners of Kyle’s mouth, Selena went to the table. She could feel his eyes following her, and when she had poured him a full measure of the peach brandy, she carried the glass to him, using both hands because they were so unsteady.
He accepted her offering silently and raised it to his lips, watching her all the while. Uncertain what to do next, Selena looked up at him, searching his rugged features. There was a maddening hint of amusement in his eyes, as if he found her efforts to please him humorous. Selena stiffened her spine.
Kyle held the glass to her lips and murmured, “Now your turn.” She stubbornly took a quick sip of the brandy, realizing he had expected her to refuse. The potent liquor burned a fiery trail all the way down to her stomach.
Kyle startled her then by cupping her throat with his long fingers, tracing the rippling path the brandy made as she swallowed. Selena closed her eyes and shuddered, partly because of the unaccustomed spirits, mostly because of the delicate massage Kyle’s fingers were giving the soft underside of her jaw.
“I think,” he murmured with a warmth that bathed her heightened senses, “I’d like to know how peaches taste on your lips.” He pushed away from the door, where he had been lounging, and bent his head.
Yet to Selena’s surprise and dismay, he didn’t kiss her. His mouth hovered just above hers, heating her lips, caressing them with his breath and the heady fumes of peach brandy, making her feel hot and shivery.
Use your instincts and Kyle will do the rest, she remembered. And her instincts told her he was too far away. Impatiently, she strained toward him. She was bewildered when Kyle drew back, just out of reach. Opening her eyes, Selena stared at him.
But he wasn’t even looking at her. Or rather, he was, but it was her bosom he was scrutinizing so intently as he slowly reached up and curved his fingers around the top edge of her corset. Gently he tugged, gliding his hand from left to right as he drew the stiffened buckram of the bodice downward.
Selena caught her breath, her entire body tensing. The tips of her breasts were hard and aching under Kyle’s warm fingers, and she realized that she quite desperately wanted him to continue touching her there. She remained perfectly immobile as he drew down the lacy edge of her chemise, exposing the erect peaks.
She saw his reaction in his gaze. His eyes changed, the teasing glint darkening, turning into something both primitive and powerful. Without a word, he dipped a forefinger in the brandy and slowly lifted it to touch a taut nipple.
Selena gasped at the ice-hot sensation, her hands clenching involuntarily.
“Do you like that, Moonwitch?”
His voice seemed to come from far away, penetrating her dazed mind. But she couldn’t find the breath to speak. His brandy-drenched finger moved to the other nipple, just barely touching, slowly circling the rosy aureole. “Come now, lovely lady. You’ll have to tell me what you like.”
“Yes,” Selena said mindlessly, this time clenching her jaw against the powerful ripples of heat that were streaking from the aching tips of her breasts to gather lower, between her thighs.
Any minute now she will pull away, Kyle thought distractedly, and found himself praying he could hold out till then. His blood was racing with sexual frustration, the tension in his body making his pulse pound. It was pure torture to have Selena standing half-naked before him. He ought to end this, Kyle knew, before she did—if he wanted to retain any vestige of male pride. Yet he couldn’t resist the lure of her pale breasts, the tight buds that were alert and beckoning. Lifting a softly swelling weight in his hand, he bent against his will. His tongue flicked the brandy-wet nipple, tasting peaches and warm woman.
He intended to draw the taut peak gently into his mouth but found himself urgently suckling, instead, rolling his tongue around the bud, biting it softly. He felt a fierce satisfaction in Selena’s muted gasp of pleasure but knew that if he kept it up, he would soon be groveling at her feet.
Keeping himself in check with superhuman effort, Kyle drew away. “Give me your mouth,” he said almost harshly.
She looked startled, but she complied, raising her lips for his kiss. With a grim determination, Kyle took her tantalizing mouth with his, forcing himself to divorce his thoughts from Selena’s luscious body and what it was doing to his. He was determined to keep control of the situation—if it killed him. She couldn’t really—after so many cold days—be offering her body to him like this.