Behind the Courtesan’s Mask Read Free Page B

they were playing some mad game, for they truly were in the land of fantasy.
    He could feel her nipples, pressing hard against the satin of the dress. He ran his thumbs over them, relishing the way she shivered in response. He should leave. Regroup. Think again about what best to do to bring an end to this disaster in the making. That’s what he should do.
    His lips found hers again. She melted into him with a moan, twining her arms around his neck. Honey sweet, her mouth was. “What would you do for forty thousand? Would you let me put those pearls of yours to use? Lay pearls upon your pearl? Would you let me mount you like a stallion mounts a willing filly? And when we were done, would you beg for more?”
    His breath was ragged on her mouth. With each suggestion, the heat inside her grew, though she had only a hazy idea of his meaning. “For fifty thousand, I would do even more,” Constance replied breathlessly. Her body was lit up from the inside with this heady, sparkling, jangling feeling that must be desire. Never, in the five years of her marriage, had she had even a foretaste of this. Never in her life had she been so desperate to experience the sensation of skin on skin, of flesh melding into flesh, the prelude of which was Troy’s tongue tangling with hers, his lips enveloping hers. Never.
    He should not have started this, but now he could not stop, as the images being conjured inflamed him even further. “Tell me,” he rasped.
    She thought of the cabinet by the bed. “Swansdown manacles,” she said, “silken cords, velvet rope, I have them all,” Constance said, hoping that he would not ask her to elaborate. She was sure this must be very wrong, but she could not quite grasp how, not while every one of her senses was crying out for more, and she seemed to have lost her grip on what was real and what was fantasy.
    â€œFor fifty thousand I would expect you to use them all,” Troy whispered huskily into her ear, tugging gently on her lobe, his fingers stroking the sensitive spot at the nape of her neck. “Though I warn you now, it will be you and not I who submits.”
    â€œI do not submit easily.”
    Troy laughed harshly. “You have already proved that to be so, but there is a time for resistance, and a time for submission. And if I am to pay you fifty thousand, I think I’m entitled to see a little more of the merchandise that is costing me a king’s ransom.” He pulled the pins from her hair, wrapping long hanks of it round his fist, angling her head back to kiss the pulse at the base of her throat. “I want to be certain that I’m not going to be disappointed,” he said, telling himself that he would go so far and no more. Only enough for her to betray herself beyond doubt. No more. Definitely no more. He loosed the laces of her gown.
    Constance tried to collect her thoughts, she tried to muster her resistance, but he was pressing soft kisses on the mounds of her breasts, his mouth was tantalizingly close to the clamoring peaks of her nipples. A darkly silken curl of his hair trailed across her skin, and she shivered violently. “I fear there is no doubt but that you will be disappointed,” she said raggedly.
    â€œThat is for me to decide,” Troy replied. He had all but lost his ability to reason, thinking only about the need, the urgent need, to feel her skin against his. He slipped her gown over her arms, down her body, where it pooled at her feet, leaving her in her decadent scarlet corset, her black stockings with their scarlet ribbons, her scarlet petticoat scalloped with lace and the long string of pearls. “Dear God, but you’re beautiful.”
    â€œNo.” Constance made to cover herself. It had gone too far. Too far. And yet, inexplicably, not far enough. She was a vortex of beating pulses and jangling nerve ends. “No. I’m not—I’m not…”
    â€œOh, but you