Dance of Seduction (8 page)

“But—”

“Besides, I have a good berth here.” He swept his hand to include the entirety of the small, windowless room.

She glanced around. This had once been a kitchen, judging from the small stove at the back, but for some reason he’d taken it for his bedchamber. Lord knows why, for with the stairway against the left wall, there wasn’t much space. He had a rickety bed scarcely big enough for a man his size, a scarred dresser, a washstand, a basket of apples, and not much else.

Good Lord, for a wicked receiver, he certainly lived spartanly. “You call
this
a ‘good berth’?” she said with disdain.

“It suits my purposes. More importantly, I pay no rent. In the long run, leaving here would actually cost me money, even with your attempt at compensation.”

That roused her suspicions. “How do you manage to pay no rent?”

“Friends of mine own the building.” His gaze hardened. “But that isn’t any of your concern. Nor is my shop or my ac
tivities.” All hint of his earlier smug amusement vanished, and only the menacing wolf remained as he stalked up to her. “So you’d best steer clear and mind your own business, Lady Clara, if you don’t want trouble from me.”

If she let him cow her now when the fight had just begun, she’d never defeat him. Tamping down her apprehension, she met his gaze evenly. “All right, if you won’t listen to reason and leave London, just give me the watch and I’ll be on my way.”

“The watch?”

She glared at him. “The watch we’ve been discussing, for pity’s sake. If you’ll recall, you didn’t pay Johnny for it, so by rights it’s still his. Since I’m the one presently responsible for him, I demand that you give it back.” At the very least, she must keep Johnny from coming here to get money for his thievery.

He glowered at her. “I can’t give it to you. I don’t have it anymore. I sold it to a man shortly after I acquired it.”

“That’s impossible. There hasn’t been enough time, and your shop isn’t that busy. Why, in the whole time I’ve been here, nobody has even ventured to come inside.”

“Who can blame them with your watchdog standing guard? I tell you, I sold it.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care.” He paused. “But if it will ease your mind, I’ll give you the payment I would have given Johnny.”

“Certainly not! Then I’d be as guilty of a crime as the two of you.”

“That’s the best I can do. If you won’t take it, you might as well leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere without that watch.” Sucking in a breath, she held out her hand. It occurred to her that Samuel couldn’t see her now that she’d come into the back of the shop. Still, every ounce of her pride balked at letting the cap
tain win. She forced herself to stare up into eyes chilly with threat. “Give it to me, and I promise I’ll go.”

“You’ll go, all right.” He stepped so close she could feel heat emanating from his body. “You’ll go this minute. Because if you stay even though I’ve made it clear I don’t have your confounded watch, I’ll assume you have other reasons for waiting around.”

He dropped his gaze deliberately to her mouth, and a trembling began somewhere in the vicinity of her belly. “L-Like what?”

“Like you’ve grown tired of your lonely existence corralling a lot of thankless scamps.” He lifted his hand to run one finger down her cheek, sending a sensual shiver along her skin. “You’d like to experience something more…exciting.” He bent close to whisper, “With me.”

She jerked back. “Don’t be absurd.”

He dropped his hand and gestured to the doorway into the front room. “Fine. You know the way out. Good day, Lady Clara.”

She stared at his self-assured expression. Clearly he expected her to abandon her quest for the watch and run screaming from his shop, clutching her virtue to her chest and vowing never to come back.

It was almost certainly a bluff, just the sort of tactic her roguish uncles would have tried on any hapless female who’d given them trouble. But did she dare to call him on it?

Why not? If he tried anything, all she had to do was scream and Samuel would be in here in seconds. But she’d wager good coin that he wouldn’t try anything anyway.

She tilted her chin up. “I told you—I’m not leaving without the watch.”

Disbelief, then anger, flashed over his face, and before she could even react, he advanced forward, forcing her to back up or be run down. She came up short against the wall, where
he trapped her by planting his hands on either side of her shoulders.

She stared up into his determined expression and felt a moment’s panic. “What in the dickens do you think you’re doing?”

“Rousing your sense of self-preservation.”

“I’m not afraid of you, you know,” she said stoutly.

He flashed her a smile of pure wickedness. “You should be.”

Then he kissed her. Hard. Thoroughly. As she’d never been kissed before.

His audacity so stunned her that she didn’t react at first. Then she tried pushing him away, but it was like shoving a boulder. Nothing gave, nothing moved.

Nothing but his mouth…which explored every inch of her lips with merciless thoroughness. She smelled apples on his breath, mingling with the spicy aroma of bay rum that clung to his roughly shaven jaw.

A wanton heat flashed through her, mortifying her to her toes. Surely she wasn’t actually responding to this….

This incredible, alarming kiss that went on and on until she grew dizzy.

When he tore his lips free, she was so rattled that all she could do was stare at him. Her heart thundered in her ears as she fought frantically to rein in her wildly careening senses.

At least he looked nearly as rattled as she. His breath came in ragged, urgent gasps, and his face mirrored her own surprise.

Until he wiped it clean of all expression. “Now,” he whispered, “I hope I’ve made it thoroughly clear why you’d best not come around here anymore.”

She understood his words for the threat he meant them to be. “You mean, because you might kiss me senseless?” How dare he assume he could run her off so easily?

“Or worse.” His eyes glittered wolflike in the dim light. “I might ravish you.”

“R-Ravish me?” A bubble of hysterical laughter rose in her throat before she could prevent it. “Good Lord, that sounds like something out of a Gothic novel! Ravish me, indeed. Don’t be ridiculous.”

Judging from the flare of frustration in his face, her response wasn’t what he’d hoped for. His mouth tightened into a grim line as he leaned into her, reminding her only too well that he had her trapped. “You think I wouldn’t?”

“I think you’re not that stupid.”

That seemed to give him pause. “What do you mean?”

“You were right when you said going to the police to complain about your business affairs might gain me nothing. But if I complain about your attacking me…well, that’s another matter entirely, isn’t it? Englishmen are odd that way. They don’t take a lady of rank seriously until she cries that she’s been ‘ravished,’ as you so colorfully put it. Then I need only point the finger, and they’ll hound you to the gallows.”

Not that she for one moment believed he actually would “ravish” her. If he’d intended that, he wouldn’t have stopped kissing her to deliver his dire threats in that bullying tone of his.

“Excellent point,” he muttered.

“I thought so.” She was finally winning a round. Buoyed by the possibility of success with this new tactic, she added smugly, “Indeed, if you don’t move away and give me that watch, I might be tempted to complain of your behavior anyway. It would be my word against yours, and as I said, in such a case mine is more likely to be believed.”

She’d expected to make him capitulate at last. Instead, humor glinted in his eyes. “Then I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, mightn’t I?”

She had only a second to wonder what he meant before his mouth came down on hers again.

She didn’t even attempt to fight him this time, angry that her tactic hadn’t worked, annoyed that he would call her bluff, and…curious, too, God help her. How far would he take this absurdity?

She had her answer in seconds. Because his mouth was no longer the only thing touching her. He snaked one arm around her waist to pull her flush against him and caught her chin with his other hand to hold her still for his kiss. Then he melded himself to her, breast to thigh, while all she did was stand there, letting him.

She wasn’t even sure why, except that his kiss was different this time, coaxing, more intimate than threatening. His lips played with hers, sipping at them, caressing them. Oh, bother, that made it so much more difficult to ignore.

The sudden intrusion of his tongue between her lips shocked her, but he gave her no time to fight it. With a deftness Lucifer himself would admire, he delved inside to explore her mouth.

The strange act intrigued her. No man had ever put his tongue in her mouth. She would never have expected it to feel so…pleasurable. And thrilling and decidedly wicked.

She swayed against him without even realizing she did so, and a noise half-growl, half-groan rose from his throat. He dragged her closer to give her one long, drugging kiss after another. With every plunge of his tongue, her pulse spiked higher and she grew more light-headed. Good Lord, but he certainly could kiss. She’d never dreamed men were capable of this much…passion.

No, that wasn’t quite true. She
had
spied on her uncles kissing their tarts a time or two. Now she understood why the
women had always been breathless and flushed and weak-kneed when they’d pulled away.

For the same reason she was growing breathless and flushed and weak-kneed beneath his hands.

His strong, masterful hands. The one at her throat stroked and caressed, treating her skin as if it were delicate and fine. The other splayed its fingers over her back to urge her against him until she feared that every button on his waistcoat would leave its imprint on her bodice. Yet despite the close embrace—and the magnificent swirl of feeling it incited—he still only kissed her. She knew there was more to ravishment than that.

Perhaps the wolf wasn’t quite so dangerous as he pretended. Unfortunately, there was only one way to find out for sure—give him a little rope and see if he hung himself.

And pray that he didn’t tie her up with it instead.

Chapter 5

The artful Angler baits his Hook,
And throws it gently in the Brook;
Which the Fish view with greedy eyes,
And soon are taken by Surprize.
A Little pretty pocket-book,
John Newbery

M
organ wanted to stop, but he couldn’t.
Bon Dieu
, she tasted like heaven. She felt like heaven, too, with her willowy body yielding in his arms. Which was precisely why he should let her go. Her eager response showed that his attempt to intimidate her wasn’t working.

Yet he couldn’t stop kissing her. Her warm, welcoming mouth inflamed his need, and her flowery scent teased his nostrils. He wanted to sink into her. From the moment she’d raced to Johnny’s defense like an avenging angel, he’d itched to taste her, to touch her, to strip off her ugly gown and…

Ravish her. Yes, that sounded vastly appealing just now.

But he wouldn’t. Not because of her silly threats, of
course. Ravenswood would handle any complaint to the police with swift efficiency. He wouldn’t because he didn’t take unwilling women, even when the force of desire made them temporarily willing.

So no matter how giving and lush her mouth, no matter how womanly the body pressed to him, and no matter how freshly scented her hair, he must put her aside before she got under his skin any further. He’d made his point. If she didn’t flee his shop now, she didn’t have the sense God had given her.

Releasing her, he stepped back and waited for the outrage to show in her face, waited for the inevitable slap. He needed it, wanted it. Then he’d be rid of her for good.

No slap came. Instead, she twined her arms about his neck and hung onto him. When she then stretched up to press her lips to his, he jerked back to growl, “What the hell are you doing?”

Her pretty eyebrows arched high on her forehead. “Kissing you, of course.”

Her apparent eagerness confused him. But his body didn’t think twice—every confounded muscle sprang to attention. “Why?”

Determination glinted in her eyes. “Without more proof, I can hardly complain to the officers that you were ravishing me. You have to be in the midst of something more incriminating than kissing me before I can scream for Samuel and have him march you off to the Lambeth Street Police. Of course, if you’d rather just give me that watch, Captain Pryce…”

The little fool thought to bluff him with her petty threats. She had no idea how close she was coming to breaking his control. Even knowing it was a bluff couldn’t calm the havoc in his randy body. “If we’re to be intimate,” he taunted her, “don’t you think you should call me Morgan?”

“Very well.” Her voice dripped sweetness. “My dear Morgan, can we get on with this business of ravishment?”

“You still think I wouldn’t dare, don’t you?”

“I
know
you wouldn’t,” she challenged him.

He glared down at her, his hands tightening convulsively on her waist. “I ought to call your bluff. I ought to ravish you if only to make you see how foolish you are to risk your virtue so recklessly.”

“I’m touched, truly touched that you care,” she retorted, echoing his own mocking words.

“Oh, stubble it,” he rasped and kissed her again, not bothering to hide one ounce of his need, determined to teach her a lesson.

But damn her if she didn’t kiss him back. Her mouth accepted his reckless tongue as enthusiastically as any tart’s, and if he hadn’t known she didn’t mean it, he would have laid her down right there and taken her. He wanted her that much. Too much.

Perhaps it was time he showed her how much. He slid his hand between them to cup one breast, kneading it through the worsted of her gown.

For one incredible moment, she actually responded, leaning into his hand and making his loins stir with keen excitement. Then she froze and jerked back, her eyes a brilliant, startled blue. “What are you doing?”