Wedding Favors Read Free Page B

that to her. Omigod. Was that—
    “Ah,” Shay murmured, interrupting her astonishment. “C’est bon.”
    “What?” Surely, he didn’t think—She started to step away from him, to explain that no way was she interested in—But instead of letting her go, he wrapped his hand around her jaw and covered her mouth with his. She let out another gasp of shock. He urged her chin down farther still with his thumb, and his tongue swept in to slick over hers.
    He tasted of old bourbon, chicory coffee, and the kind of man who always got what he wanted. She shivered with unwilling excitement. Because right now, what he wanted was ... her.
    His kiss was forceful and bold and toe-curlingly delicious. And oh, Lord, so dangerous. And it got her to thinking—in what little part of her mind that could still function—that she owed Laura an apology. Because maybe this whole fantasy thing wasn’t such a bad idea, after all.

Chapter 4

    Bon Dieu. For one so unschooled in the ways of the maison, the woman kissed like a practiced odalisque.
    Shay’s heart was slamming in his chest, and his cock waking up with a vengeance from its slumber of ennui. Not what he had expected from the little girl who had once clipped him in the jaw rather than kiss him. Perhaps those coins accidentally flung in the fountain all those years ago had worked their magic at last.
    Reluctantly, he broke the kiss, giving her lips a final slow lick. But he didn’t let her go. “Vien,” he said and banded his arm around her shoulders. “Come with me.”
    Tessa looked as stunned as he felt. Bon. Perhaps a bit more. She almost stumbled as he led her back into the maison’s lobby from the courtyard, past the bar and through toward the grand staircase, to take her upstairs.
    “But ... Shay, wait.”
    Inside the salon, the heavy beat of the music matched the pounding of his heart. He halted at the foot of the stairs. “What is it, ma douce?”
    “I—” She swallowed. “I’m not sure—”
    Hesitation? Not with the taste of her surrender still sweet on his tongue. He would have her. Of this, there was no doubt.
    He regarded her with growing interest. Her resistance told him her sensual skill was instinctive rather than earned. It made him desire her all the more. “But you want me, non?”
    She blinked. Her cheeks turned red, and she looked down. “Yes,” she whispered. “But this is outside my experience. I don’t know if I can do it.”
    He was charmed by her genuine reluctance to give in to her natural desires. It turned him on even more. Her reticence pointed to a guileless innocence that was entirely unique in this place of jaded encounters.
    Yet despite her somewhat prim façade, he sensed a wanton lurking behind it, hungering to come out and play. And he was just the man to tempt her. He wondered what would finally push her over the edge. Did she want money? Was that her fantasy?
    “I’ll double the usual fee if you come with me upstairs,” he offered.
    Her eyes darted up, widening. She started to shake her head. “I’m not a—”
    He leaned down and murmured in her ear, “Admit it, you want to know what it’s like to be with a man who craves you so badly he’ll pay a small fortune just to be inside you.”
    Her blush deepened, and he could see her nipples clearly under the silky fabric of her dress, tight and peaked. He knew it. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. He wasn’t the only one caught in this invisible net of ravenous desire. Almost as if ...
    Unbidden, a shiver ran down his spine. Simple lust, he told himself. Their raging attraction had nothing to do with spellbound fountains or irrational curses or imaginary voodoo.
    “Do you?” she asked. “Do you want me that much?”
    In answer, he pulled her into his arms. With a hand to her backside, he pressed her body into his. Let her feel the thick, unyielding ridge of his arousal. “Take a wild guess, cher.”
    Her breath sucked in. He knew he was well-endowed. Enough so