Page 131 of Dukes for Dessert

“Certainly,” he agreed. “But there are ways to tell, so many men ignore it, either because of ignorance or simple selfishness. These are impossible to fabricate.”

“If you say so.”

“If a man is simply searching for writhing yips, then he could certainly be fooled,” Sebastian conceded, lowering his voice and leaning toward her. “But, like so many untamed creatures, a woman’s desire is so often conveyed with unspoken, incontrollable signals. Take, for example, the dilation of her eyes. The plumping of her lips with blood and the tightening of her nipples. Her breath will come more quickly, and her delicate nostrils will flare.”

Sebastian very much enjoyed the fact that she did her level best to measure her rapid breaths and tuck her full lips against her teeth.

“The same could be said of a frightened woman, as an aroused one,” she said, in a voice husked with sensation and tightened with strain.

“If I cannot tell from a woman’s reaction if she is aroused, then it is indisputable that her sex will reveal all.”

“You’re…you’re being absurd,” she accused.

If he reached out and touched her cheek in that moment, Sebastian might have diagnosed her with a fever. She was ripe and primed, and that likely contributed to her temper.

A gentleman would allow her a moment to recover.

But he never claimed to be a gentleman, and the predator within him could scent her arousal like a shark sensed blood in the water.

Now was no time for a retreat.

Instead, he splayed his hand close to hers on the desk and leaned down until his lips hovered above the shell of her ear. Not one part of them touched the other.

But every nerve in his body was alive with the feel of her. Attuned to the very vibrations of her atmosphere. “Your intimate skin flushes with color,” he continued, in a voice barely above a whisper, threatening to be swept away by the rhythmic cacophony of the train. “The hood of delicate flesh becomes swollen, engorged, revealing the clever, magical button it protects. That delicious little place where so much of your pleasure is contained. The folds will be slippery with desire, and if paid the correct attention, you’ll release a flood of moisture upon your climax that would take me two swallows to contain. Your muscles would clench at my cock with powerful, chaotic little spasms. Trust me, my beauty, these are things that cannot be feigned. Surely you know that.”

She said nothing. Did nothing.

In fact, they stood like that for so long he straightened and pulled away to examine her with a twinge of concern.

“Do you know that? Have you ever…”

She stared down at their fingertips splayed on the desk, as close as they could be without touching. Breath sawed in and out of her with marked difficulty, unsteady with the force of her trembles.

These were no small vibrations, Sebastian noted. But great, bone-wracking tremors, wrought by overpowering emotion.

He knew the answer, and the heart he claimed to have left on some deserted island somewhere broke at the injustice.

“Veronica. Look at me.”

She flinched, but didn’t retreat. Perhaps he was being unintentionally crueler than he realized. He wanted to torment her with arousal. But…what if arousal was a torment for her?

What if Mortimer Weatherstoke created wounds that were still taking time to scar?

Swallowing a surge of rage, he slid his hand closer, allowing the energy to arc between them before the pads of their fingers touched.

“Look at me,” he pressed, gentler this time.

With infinite slowness, she tilted her neck back until their gazes met and held. Even in the dim light, her eyes gleamed the color of the most exotic eastern jade.

To Sebastian’s astonishment, something within him calmed.

In the past, he’d been told that to look into the eyes of the right woman was like falling, losing oneself in their color, or perhaps drowning in their depths. The earth would move, the planets would align, and all that melodramatic, romantical nonsense.

How intriguing to learn they’d been wrong.

This was neither falling nor drowning. Quite the opposite, in fact.

The earth had ceased to move entirely.