Forbidden by Susan Johnson (good books to read for teens .TXT) 📕

on a nunnery, but an admission in those terms would have been imprudent.

Daisy must have reconsidered the absurdity of her jealousy for her expression became suddenly contrite. "I'm sorry," she said with a small smile, sitting splendidly nude in the center of his golden bed.

"And had I answered differently?" he asked, pulling his shirt over his head, gazing down at her with a teasing smile, his developed skill at omission having averted an argument.

"I would have left."

"You wouldn't have gotten far." His gaze swept her form, lingering on her opulent breasts and firm taut stomach and lower where the dark silk of her hair touched the pastel peach coverlet. "Because I'm extremely focused at the moment."

"I can outrun you." She spoke with a quiet confidence.

"Perhaps," he noncommittally said, not wishing to argue. He doubted she could, but if she could initially, he would have overtaken her eventually. After all, she was naked with nowhere to run except within the twenty-five square miles of his fenced estate. Which thought further provoked his libido.

"I always won—even against my brothers when we were young."

"Do you think I should lock the door then?" he asked with a grin, reaching for the buttons on his trousers.

A woman's high-pitched giggle—extremely close—suddenly interrupted their privacy along with a splash of oars and the gruffer voice of a man shouting, "No, pull the rope to starboard, to your left, left, oh hell!" And with noisy impact, some kind of craft crashed into the boathouse.

"Oh hell!" Etienne's exclamation echoed that of the unseen man. He debated for a moment whether they could ignore the situation entirely, but the giggling female voice rose in another shriek of laughter, deciding the issue for him. "Goddammit, no, not you. Lord you're touchy. Relax, don't move," he said briskly, redoing his trouser buttons. "I'll be right back."

A full fifteen minutes passed before he returned, for he had to help the young man unsnarl the sail of his small dinghy, find another oar to replace the one the rather inebriated young lady had let slip into the river, and then wait patiently while the pretty shopgirl answered nature's call on shore. They were on holiday, the young man told him, and were sailing to Le Havre, but Angelique had had too much wine for lunch when they stopped at Argenteuil and decided she wanted to try her hand at sailing. The Duc was polite. He understood, he said. These things happen, he agreed. Yes, the Seine was especially beautiful on this part of the river. No, really, it was no trouble at all, keep the oar, he had several more, take care when you enter the locks near Bougival, the current tends to take you in too fast. And he stood on the jetty while the young man tacked back out into the main current, just to make sure they wouldn't be disturbed again.

"All is resolved?" Daisy asked when he returned. She had overheard enough of the conversation to understand the situation.

"The woman had too much to drink."

"You look warm." She was lying back on an assortment of pillows looking cool, her voice teasing like a playful kitten.

"Hmpf," he said, hot from the sun and his haste to expedite the intruders' departure, giggling women a special irritation to him. Walking over to a gilded washstand, he poured some water into a large porcelain washbasin, bent his head over it, and splashed water over his face. He came up dripping, cooler and aware suddenly one of the mechanized doors in the sweeping curve of headboard near Daisy's right shoulder was open.

"You've been busy while I was gone," he murmured, his voice coming from deep in his throat. The hinged doors concealing the sportive apparatus on the gold harem bed were hidden in the intricacies of the embossed design, triggered by devices in the fretwork ornament bordering each panel.

Daisy's dark, silky brows framed eyes full of innocence, but then she smiled, altering the innocence with play. "I was admiring the goldsmithing technique."

"How many did you find?"

"Eight."

"Very good," he said in admiration; they were well hidden.

"How many are there?"

"Eight."

"For eight women?"

He lifted his shoulder in a shrug. It wasn't a question he was going to answer.

"Would you like to try the silk ties?"

A flaring rush, heated and heady, streaked through Etienne's senses.

Her hips moved in a subtle small rise. "Would you?" And she arched her back slowly, feeling the fire in her blood race downward.

"I didn't know," he murmured, his smile, slow and lingering, "whether you'd like… being tied."

Daisy's dark eyes opened in a deliberate measured speculation. "I was thinking, actually," she said very low, "of you being tied."

He couldn't suppress the surging increase in his arousal and it showed in the swelling rise beneath the soft linen of his trousers.

"You like the idea," she murmured.

"I don't know if I like the idea."

Her eyes opened wide in contradiction. "Have you only dealt with complaisant women?"

"I suppose," he said very slowly, considering briefly the scope of her question, "maybe I have." He wasn't immodest enough to point out that complaisance was a mild term for the extreme willingness of his lovers. On the other hand, Daisy's candid sensuality, her open and spontaneous freedom of spirit were fascinating to a man who had never met a woman who demanded equality.

"Until now," she said, as if reading his mind.

"The Circe," he whispered, "of my soul."

"Would you mind then," she murmured, her lashes falling in languid suggestion, "taking those"—her finger pointed at his trousers—"off and I'll try to live up to a reputation of that magnitude."

He grinned at her confidence. "My pleasure," he said, unbuttoning with swift fingers.

Daisy watched as his buff-linen trousers slid down his hips and legs, marveling at the simultaneous splendor and austerity of his body. He was lean yet powerfully muscled, an athlete's body honed by sport, patined with a dulcet grace. And when he moved toward her, she gazed, fascinated, as the muscles in his thighs, torso, shoulders shifted and rippled beneath the dark bronze