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as a bow. His mouth dry from talking. His eyes hungry for a glance of her ripe body and lovely face. As if the dinner guests knew of his need, they parted, revealing Anais standing by the hearth, talking to her younger sister.
    She must have felt his burning gaze, because she stopped talking and turned to look at him. Her smile went all the way to his core, hitting like a rush—like that first great inhalation of opium.
    If a man’s future was truly preordained—his destiny written while still in the womb—then he was looking upon the woman who was his fate, the woman he knew had been created solely for him.
    He had always known that someday Anais would belong to him. She would be more than his friend. He’d always believed it, but never more than this moment as their gazes collided together, and their bodies became aware of each other.
    She always took his breath away. They’d been friends forever, since young childhood, but his feelings were no longer chasteor platonic. No, his feelings and desires were hot. Passionate. Erotic. And the perfumed dreams he had of Anais last night had been the most erotic yet. The things she had let him do to her…
    One day, they wouldn’t be just dreams and fantasies.
    “Good evening, Lindsay.”
    Her soft voice washed over him like a caress, and he felt himself grow aroused. It was so hard to hide his feelings from her. He doubted he could for much longer.
    Her gloved hand felt so right in his palm as he raised her fingers to his lips. Her eyes, those beautiful, mesmerizing pools, captured his attention, watching as his lips slowly descended to her fingertips. He lingered there, inhaling her perfume, watching the rise and fall of her breasts in the tight bodice. She moved in, just a hint, and the cloud of her rich perfume rose up to coil around him.
    She had scented her breasts with the French perfume he had purchased for her.
    Desire gripped him, and lost to everything but need, he closed his eyes and inhaled the heady scent. In his mind, he could see the golden liquid trickle between the cleft of her breasts. He saw the cut crystal bottle stopper in her hand as she trailed it along her cleavage. One day, he vowed, he would lay negligently in their bed, which would be rumpled from their lovemaking, and watch her at her toilette. One day, he would come and stand behind her and take the stopper from her hand and trace her breasts with it. One day, she would look into the mirror and see him standing there, desire in his eyes.
    “Lindsay?”

    Slowly, his eyelids opened and there she was. Her head was bent, her lips ripe for his mouth to plunder. It would be no trial—and highly arousing—to pull the little puffy sleeves of her gown down her arms and expose her. He knew she would be wearing a corset, but in his dreams, she would be naked beneath, bared to his eyes and hands.
    His gaze swept over her face, which was so lovely to him, then down her throat, which he longed to brush his lips over, down to the pulse that fluttered like butterfly wings. Every inch of her was as luscious as a sweet from the candy shop. And God above, he was beyond wanting a taste of her.
    “Good evening, my angel,” he said over her hand. “You look ravishing, as always.”
    “You have been practicing your flattery, my lord,” she said with a little laugh that was too high. Nervous? Aroused? Her laugh seemed unnatural. “The ladies in London must swoon at your skill, sir.”
    “I do not know. I do not share any compliments with ladies other than you, Anais.”
    Her eyes told him she was dubious about his sincerity. “Truth,” he whispered in her ear.
    She bristled at the sudden contact of their bodies. He was forgetting himself, forgetting where he was. Forgetting that in Anais’s mind they were friends, not lovers.
    Yet, in his mind they’d been lovers for years. Carnally, he was very well acquainted with every inch of her enticing body. What man wouldn’t dream of a woman like Anais? Plump and