Page 56 of A Rogue's Rules for Seduction
Oh, hell.
Meanwhile, she caught sight of Mr. Longbridge and the baron standing at the back of the ballroom. They were in costume, but far, far away from the wings. And Tabitha returned to her seat to give Finn and Kieran a nod—as if she’d carried out her assigned task.
Two things struck Willa simultaneously.
The first: she and Dom had been set up.Again.
The second: Dom was wearingverylittle clothing, revealing acres and acres of his densely muscled body, including his impossibly wide shoulders, sculpted arms, and taut, hewn thighs that were easily as wide as some people’s torsos.
When she’d been on the Continent, she’d attempted to distract herself by taking a few art classes that had included live models of all sexes. And while there had been a tiny scrap of fabric draped across the male model’s nethers, the rest of his body had been entirely bare. His form had been extremely agreeable, rivaling an ancient statue for sheer musculature, and the time Willa had spent sketching him had indeed provided her with a few hours of pleasant distraction.
She’d thought herself very sophisticated for an unmarried woman, seeing an unknown and well-formed man almost completely nude.
But that had been nothing,nothing, compared to the jaw-dropping sight of Dom in his tiny costume.
Great God in heaven, she knew he was of substantial size and possessed a brawny physique, yetthe truth of him went beyond all her knowledge and imaginings.
Not only that, he was barefoot, and his feet were, quite simply,enormous. And the papier-mâché club he carried looked like a reed in his massive hand.
That meant thatallof him was similarly proportioned.
Despite the fact that she stood onstage in front of over a dozen people, tricked by her own kin, exposed and lost, her gaze arrowed straight to Dom’s groin. It was as if, fueled by the certainty that he was gigantic in every capacity, she could look nowhere else.
She’dfelthim last night, but that was a far cry fromseeinghow the chiton’s short skirt clung to a large and distinctive bulge at the top of his thighs.
Someone in the audience whistled, and she snapped to attention in time to see Dom’s own astonished, ravenous gaze moving over her as she stood in her revealing costume. She felt him everywhere: on the lines of her legs beneath her thin skirt, skimming over her hips, lingering on the shapes of her breasts so provocatively displayed by the draping fabric. His eyes went dark, and his jaw flexed.
A flame of arousal flickered low in her belly, which was ruddy inconvenient as she wasstanding onstageas a direct result of her family’s manipulations, and she didn’t know what to do with themonstrous, overwhelming desire that kept pulling her toward Dom.
Yet shewasonstage, and theoretically, she was supposed to be playing the role of the Queen of the Amazons for a tableau vivant. Perhaps if she struck a pose, Mr. Longbridge and Baron Hunsdon would come up and actually act out their seduction scenario.
Awkwardly, she stood with one hand in the air and the other on her hip, hoping she resembled some figure on a painted urn. Dom must’ve had a similar idea, because he, too, affected a stance, flexing his bicep as if to enact Hercules’s display of fabled strength.
Unfortunately for her, it also made the muscles of his upper arm bunch in a far-too-beguiling manner.
She and Dom posed like that for several moments. But nothing happened. Mr. Longbridge and the baron remained at the back of the ballroom. Watching.
“A scene, a scene!” one of the audience members called. “Speak!”
The cry was repeated by others, growing louder and louder, until it thundered around Willa. She glanced uncertainly toward Dom. He appeared just as doubtful as she did, until, at last, something had to be done.
She was Willa Goddamn Ransome and she didn’t back down from a challenge.
She moved to the center of the stage. When Dom lingered in his place by the side, she made a quick motion for him to join her.
He took an uncertain step toward her, and then another. Finally, they stood with a few feet between them.
“Now what?” he said, sotto voce.
“Now pretend that you’re Hercules and you’re trying to seduce me into giving you my girdle,” she hissed back.
He stared at her. “Truly?”
“Yes, truly,” she said lowly. “Do it, Dom, or we’re going to look like even bigger asses up here.”
He cleared his throat, and then, in a stilted voice, he said, “Uh, fair Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, I stand before you—”
“Louder!” somebody yelled.
