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

the best and choicest portions. And she ate the lobster with her fingers.

"Do you mind?" she'd inquired once, aware of Etienne's attentive gaze—her query politeness only; she wasn't a martinet for protocol.

"Not at all. I'm enjoying the sight. Later," he said in a soft murmur, relaxed against the antique silk of his chair, his half-eaten peach held lazily in one propped hand, "I'll lick your fingers for you."

"Ah… how nice—a useful man." Her smile was delicately tinted with the pale pink lobster sauce. "Would you like to start now?" And she leaned forward a fraction, extending her robed arm across the polished tabletop.

"I thought," he said with a faint smile, "I'd wait until the baba was served. To avoid," he softly added, "any undue interruptions in my…" One dark brow rose in winged insinuation… "utilitarian functions."

"Umm…" Anticipation vibrated through her sultry tone. "I'm almost inclined to forgo the baba." Her grin was instant and then she licked her fingers herself. "Almost…" she murmured past her fingertips.

He laughed. "I've never taken second place to a baba." He had in fact never taken second place in any of his lovers' thoughts. Which made the mademoiselle from Montana fascinating to him.

"No doubt your character will be improved for the experience." Teasing lights shone in the darkness of Daisy's eyes.

"If not improved, certainly constrained… at least."

"A lesson there too," she cheerfully noted.

"Perhaps later I can educate you too."

Her smile was seductive as Eve. "Really."

"Really," he whispered.

The baba, a stupendous grosse piece, a veritable work of art, was carried in by the pastry chef himself on a silver platter adorned with sugared grapes, brilliant candied citron, and delicate sugar-dusted violets. Tendrils of steam rose from its golden glazed surface, the center of the ringed cake piled high with a fluffy mountain of scented chantilly creme. The special sauce, created for Louis Quinze's father-in-law, arrived in a magnificent silver sauceboat carried in splendid solitude by a privileged sous-chef.

Daisy was truly dazzled, the pastry chef was duly complimented, and Etienne decided dining, a deux in his bedchamber with Daisy Black was very close to heaven on earth. The vivid delight in Daisy's eyes outshone the lesser glories of several Wonders of the World he'd viewed in his wanderings around the globe.

"You have to taste this sauce, Etienne," Daisy said some few moments later after the servants had departed and after she'd tasted each of the marvels on the silver platter: the warm sweet succulent baba; the sugared grapes; the dainty delicate violets; the creme chantilly, and of course the Lunéville sauce7.

She was currently licking her finger, dipped for the third time into the luscious sauce.

"I'd love to; are you finished?" He had in fact, checked the tall case clock in the corner several times during Daisy's discourse with the chefs who'd delivered the baba. His peach was discarded, his wineglass set aside. Even a man of his patience had definable limits.

"Yes." She softly breathed, stretching. "Finally. Now try this." And rising from her chair, she leaned across the small table, offering the Duc her finger glazed with the baba sauce.

He held her hand for a moment before taking her finger into his mouth and Daisy felt for a brief rushing second as she had the first time she'd met the Duc de Vec—mesmerized by an urgency to touch him.

"You indulge me." Her quiet declaration ended on a hushed indrawn breath for his mouth had closed on her finger and his tongue slowly glided down its length.

"With enormous pleasure," he said in hushed reply, kissing the tip of her finger, "and occasionally with a certain degree of impatience," he added, releasing her hand.

"I did make you wait," she declared, pleased he wanted her enough for impatience.

"Oh yes." He leisurely rose and she saw stark evidence of his arousal, till then hidden. The scarlet brocade, tied at his waist with tasseled silk, stood prominently forward. "If you're finished," he said in a husky low tone, "now it's my turn for dessert."

The lazy contentment, the sybaritic pleasure of leisurely eating and drinking the exquisite food and wines, the proximity of Etienne's fascinated interest, the ambiance of Bernini's genius in architectural design, the boat whistles on the Seine outside, all contributed to a sensation of enchantment, enhanced now by a scorching blaze of sensual heat. As if she were the recipient of another thousand degrees of pleasure—as if she were being offered sensation beyond the refinements of human language to describe.

And she knew what he could give her. She could see. She knew in only moments she'd forget that reason guided human behavior, she'd forget without a qualm.

He took two steps to round the table spread with food and offered her his hand. "Bring the sauce," he said. "I thought I'd try some in bed."

She felt the tremor in her fingertips as she reached for the small silver vessel. He turned to steady her hand, as if he could sense her arousal.

"I'll carry it. So it doesn't spill… here."

He set the sauceboat down on the bedside table amidst a hodgepodge of bibelots added to over the generations by other de Vecs: a framed miniature on a small gold easel of a young lady from the date of the palace—her midseventeenth-century fashionable pallor framed by delicate golden-red curls; a pre-Revolution diamond-studded snuffbox as glittering as the era of its provenance; two porcelain ocelots brought back from Napoleon's Egyptian campaign by the de Vec progressive enough to have joined Napoleon's faction and survived the Revolution; a silver-framed photo of a young boy at his mother's knee with a tentative smile and Etienne's eyes.

The bed complemented the eclectic decor of the room: a combination of original gilded furniture, exotic Russian pieces in inlay and bronze and stone, comfortable Biedermeier chairs and sofas fringed and tasseled and heavily brocaded. But no trace of a woman anywhere—it was essentially a man's room. The bed was pure Louis Quatorze—heavy, solid, ornately carved and gilded, curtained in a dark masculine chocolate cut-velvet, faded over the centuries to the