Page 19 of To Heist and to Hold

While she had become familiar with the layout of much of the ground floor of the club in the past days, tonight it felt like a completely different place.

He silently guided her down the hallway, the twists and turns making her feel disoriented, dizzy.

Just when they reached a portion she recognized, the scents and sounds and dim, sultry lighting had her senses veering off again.

But, to her shock, she did not feel the apprehension she had expected to.

No, there was only a buzzing anticipation deep in her gut, radiating from that place where their bare palms met.

Suddenly they came to the end of the hall and Mr. Sinclaire paused, pushing open the door before him.

Noise and gilded light flooded into the dark hallway, and she caught a quick glimpse of brilliant gaslights casting a glow upon highly polished wood tables, each surrounded by elegantly dressed men with glasses in hand and wide smiles on their faces.

But there was nothing joyous about the atmosphere; rather it was almost threatening, jarring, a shock to her senses, and she unconsciously shrank back from it.

She had not realized just how comforting the dark and quiet—as well as Mr. Sinclaire’s presence—had been.

He spoke to someone on the other side of the door then.

“Please let anyone who asks after me know that I will be indisposed for some time.”

“Aye, Mr. Sinclaire,” the unseen man replied.

Before the man was done speaking, Mr. Sinclaire shut the door and, closing his fingers more tightly about hers, opened the door at his side and pulled her through.

Ah, yes, now she knew where they were, the dark stairs that led to the offices above. Just as he had that morning, he led the way to that long, quiet hallway to his own office at the end of it, closing the door behind them when they were inside.

Every nerve in Heloise’s body came alive at the soft click of the latch. Lamps were already burning here, but though she had spent time there just that morning, their low light made the place feel strange, foreign.

“I thought,” he said, his voice quiet as he stood still against the closed door, dark eyes glittering in the shadows, “that it might be good for us to get to know one another better outside of work.”

How was it that a voice could be the very embodiment of touch, that you could feel it trail over your skin and through your bones at the same time?

Keep your senses sharp , a small voice admonished in her head.

You must keep the upper hand. But that voice was hard to focus on, fuzzy as her mind was becoming as she stared into those mesmerizing nearly black eyes overshadowed by their heavy brows.

Nevertheless, she would succeed here. Everything depended on it, Julia’s livelihood and very life included.

Though, she realized as she looked at him, noting the way his gaze lingered on her as it hadn’t in the past days of her attempting to seduce him, it looked very much as if she might succeed tonight.

Dear God.

Knees shaking, she reached out blindly for the nearest object, which happened to be one of the overstuffed leather chairs they had eaten their breakfast in that morning.

“Goodness,” she managed faintly when he straightened away from the door, apparently alarmed at her sudden lurching, “it’s quite warm in here, isn’t it? Perhaps a drink might help.”

Yes, that was it, alcohol. Alcohol would not only make certain he was receptive but help ease her nerves as well. Her mouth watered as she glanced around the room, searching for a sideboard or something similar, anticipating strong spirits to help calm her. Surely the man had some liquor here.

But when he finally moved, it was not to pour generous draughts of brandy out of sparkling cut glass decanters.

No, he came up behind her, out of her line of sight, his steps as he drew closer reverberating up from the floor and through her body.

“I’ll help you off with your wrap first, shall I?

” he murmured. And then his hands were on her shoulders, and he was slowly pulling the wrap away.

She froze. Though she was fully dressed beneath the shawl, she felt as if she were being bared.

She could blame it on the gown itself, of course.

Sylvia had insisted Heloise borrow one of her more daring evening dresses, as nothing Heloise owned could possibly do for a night at the famed club.

Heloise had accepted it with reluctance, only the assurance that this was best for her goal for the evening and, by extension, for their job as a whole prodding her to take it.

She had thought surely Sylvia must be exaggerating.

There was no way a gown could invoke the reaction she needed.

It was only now, however, as the deep red silk was revealed, with its nearly bare shoulders and plunging décolletage, and she heard Mr. Sinclaire’s sharply indrawn breath behind her, that she realized just how brilliant Sylvia had been.

And then Mr. Sinclaire’s warm—no, hot, they were definitely hot—hands were on her again, this time curling around her upper arms, and all thought fled from her head.

“Mrs. Marlow,” he rasped, his voice hoarse, his breath stirring the loose curls that trailed along the nape of her neck, “I don’t suppose I could call you Heloise tonight?”

Before she could think to respond to that—not that she was capable of thinking just then—his lips were suddenly pressed against the arch where her neck met her shoulder.

It was the lightest of touches, his full lips barely brushing her skin.

Yet it sent a jolt of something molten through her.

A tremor ran through her, her body tensing in shock, the very breath stalling in her lungs.

He must have felt her reaction, for he stilled.

His uneven breath bathed the sensitive skin of her neck, his fingers tightening infinitesimally on her arms. And then he released her, stepping back, and for some strange reason Heloise, somewhere in the midst of the utter riot her mind had become, had the overwhelming urge to cry out at the loss of him.

“My apologies,” he said in a rough rasp of sound. “I must have misunderstood your intentions these past days. I’ll return you to your party.”

Which finally succeeded in snapping her back to the plan at hand.

Dear God, she finally had a chance to get close to Mr. Sinclaire and she was freezing up like some inexperienced girl who had never been with a man.

Not that her intimate interactions with Gregory had been anything spectacular.

Indeed, they had been bland at best, painful and embarrassing at worst. But still, she had been with a man.

She knew the ins and outs of doing the deed.

And Mr. Sinclaire’s actions these past minutes were proof that he was open to something between them.

All she had to do was grab the bull by the horns, so to speak, and act.

Which she did. Sucking in a sharp breath to steady herself—for, as clichéd as it sounded, she truly had forgotten to breathe in the last moments and her vision had begun to go spotty from lack of air—she spun about and, taking Mr. Sinclaire’s face in her hands, she closed her eyes tight and pressed her lips to his.