Flirting With Forever by Gwyn Cready (new books to read TXT) 📕

She flushed. “No.”

“Then I suppose it truly shal be like a wedding night.”

The warmth rose to her ears and scalp. She reached for the glass of Rhenish, which had been refil ed in her absence.

“Have your last,” he said. “I should like to have you lying down.”

With a sharp inhale, she set the glass on the table and reclined on the chaise, finding a place among the pil ows tucked against the rise at the back. The curtain of olive silk rol ed in a graceful wave across her legs. She lifted a heel under her hips to anchor her against the velvet. The other foot peeked from the fabric. Several pil ows buoyed her back. A smal one supported her neck. It was wondrously comfortable. And then, of course, the way that he looked at her was making her feel pretty at home as wel .

“You wil have to do without the head pil ow when I block in your face. After that, when I begin your body, you may have it again.”

“Al right.”

“It may hurt a bit at the beginning, but after that, I promise, you may relax and enjoy.”

“The metaphor is growing uncomfortably warm.”

Peter let out a smal , deep laugh. “The chain is lovely.”

She touched it, flustered. No matter what Jacket had said when he’d placed it around her neck, it represented an offer on his part, an offer about which she was strongly conflicted. She wished Peter had not seen it. Though she couldn’t quite express why, she wished it had gone unnoticed.

“Is there a pendant with it?” he asked. “It might make an interesting point of focus. And if it is a gift from him, it wil please him to—”

“No,” she said. “’Tis mine. I’m glad you reminded me, though. I was going to take it off.” She twisted her body until she’d blocked his view, unclasped the chain and slipped it and the ring into the pocket of the dressing gown.

He gave her a warm smile and picked up his palette.

“Now loosen your gown, if you please.”

If I please? She reached for her belt, wondering what other commands he thought she would fol ow without question that evening. She loosened the tie with one hand and let it drop. Immediately the silk resettled, fal ing in an unrestrained heap that ran from her shoulder to her hip. The fabric gaped, exposing an easy swath of white muslin, which, in turn, fol owed the curve of her breast. She could feel the air on her sternum. She wondered if he could see the beating of her heart.

“How do you want me to look?” she asked.

“I do not want you to look. I want you to think.”

“Think?”

“Aye. The portrait is for him, aye?”

“Aye.”

“You are to imagine him. When he looks at this painting he wil possess you. Each time he sets eyes on it, he wil know he, among al men, has triumphed to take your hand.

This is his Troy. Do you understand?”

“Aye.” Her voice was barely a whisper. What she wanted to think about was Peter, not Jacket.

“You are to show him what it is to be possessed.”

A tal assignment. She thought of Jacket on that long-ago night in the ladies’ lounge. He had possessed her. No question. He had fil ed her senses and loosened her tongue and made her mistress of some very surprising behavior.

She watched Peter mix his paints and wondered if he had possessed Ursula in such a manner. Had Ursula broken his heart? Or had their relationship been at an end when she’d fal en into the arms of the man Nel mentioned.

What had she said his name was? Old Pauly?

The color on his brush was dark. He would have to do the underpainting first, the base from which the bright of her hair, face and gown would rise. The easel blocked much of his body, but she could see his face, which took on a quiet intensity as he calculated the ratios of his arrangement.

Part of her was noting the workings of a seventeenth-century master, but the other part of her, fueled by the potency of the wine and Peter’s noble gesture with Miss Quinn, was heading in an entirely different direction.

She watched the movement of his thigh, the nearly imperceptible flexing of muscle as he worked, and the fine, muscled calf below. Nel had said Cam resembled Ursula.

There were