Page 40 of A Gentleman's Wager

Also, she was a lady, not a fishwife. She did not strike people, or animals, or maddeningly mercurial marquises.

After a moment, he seemed to tire of her. He walked around her using the same soft tread and moved to the ivy-shrouded window. “Tis a pity you haven’t the nerve. I think I might have enjoyed it.” He glanced back over his shoulder at her and flashed her a brief unguarded smile, inviting her to share the joke.

Bella’s reservations towards him teetered. She stepped closer to him, drawn by the faint musk of his skin and the heat of his hands and thighs. He was a strange dichotomy of a man. “If the room isn’t suitable for guests, what are you doing here?”

Vaughan brushed the hair away from his eyes and regarded her. “Sulking,” he said.

“What have you to sulk about?”

“That’s hardly any of your business.”

And there it was, the expected rebuke. Bella bit her tongue as the blood rushed into her cheeks as if she’d been struck. Well, one sharp retort wasn’t going to compel her to mind her own business. “Anything to do with whatever madness you were about last night?”

Interestingly, he did not try to deny such an event had occurred, but nor did he enlighten her as to the nature of what it was that had left everyone so out of sorts.

“Take some advice, Miss Rushdale. Leave Lucerne alone. He’ll do you no good. Break your heart as readily as he smiles.” He pressed a single finger to her lips. The touch recalled to her last night’s muddled phantasms. Horrified she might be falling under his spell; Bella slapped his hand away.

“Don’t be absurd. I’ll do no such thing. I’m his guest.”

“Guest,” he scoffed. “You disappoint me, Miss Rushdale. And there I was thinking we might become friends.”

The way he said it in such a fluid, melodic way hinted at a future obliterated and the loss of something far more intimate than friendship. It was nonsensical. They were barely even acquaintances, and not particularly well-disposed to one another, either. Therefore, it was entirely ridiculous that such a pit seemed to open in her chest. Her anger dissipated, leaving in its place a quickening kernel of desire.

He turned about and made a perch of the window ledge. “Come here.”

He reached out to her. His index finger brushed the centre of her palm, and a sweet response echoed at her core. Bewildered, Bella stared at the point of contact. A moment ago, she’d been ready to strike him, now…. Now he made her crave…well, a whole merry host of things, each more absurd than the last.

Pennerley raised her hand and kissed each of her fingertips without so much as a by your leave, and she let him because if she’d pulled away, she swore he’d have laughed, and she’d have been mortified. The last finger he nipped with his incisors, sending a prick of pleasure-pain through her over-eager body. It was like he’d woven some sort of spell. She was entranced. She groaned deeply when his tongue teased the V between her fore and middle fingers. He ticked the skin there like he was teasing her nub. The sensation transposed itself precisely as if he were on his knees between her thighs. Bella gasped. The sensible thing to do would be to snatch her hand away. She’d witnessed the aftermath of whatever he’d done to Louisa. Yet, she couldn’t.

At least now she had some notion of how he’d so easily ensnared her friend.

Kiss me, she thought, desperate to know the dance of his tongue against her own. The heat of his touch was already fierce. His kiss would surely consume her.

His lips moved up her arm. He tugged her closer, so that she felt the heat of his breath on her face.

Kiss me…

In the distance, the clock struck the hour. That was their summons to dine.

They were so close. Barely a finger’s breadth separating his mouth from hers, but instead of fulfilling her wish, he turned his head so that he spoke directly into her ear.

“Stay away from Lucerne.”

“What?” All the soft sentiments, her cravings for him were abruptly shed.

“No.”

“You refuse?”

“Utterly.

“How perfectly monstrous,” he muttered. It sounded rather like a compliment.

Bella scowled. “Did you imagine you could enslave me by sucking my fingers?”

He didn’t reply, merely smiled.

“Don’t be absurd.”