Page 14 of A Touch Wicked
Emma almost sighed. As if she were a sister.
She knew, of course, that he wouldn’t recognize her. She had made certain of it. She wore her hair differently as Selene: loose, rather than wound in a chignon. And her dress had been that of a lady’s, not the plain, modest wardrobe of a servant.
And yet . . she wanted him to put his arms around her. To peel her clothes off and take her against the wall, right there.
Right now.
“Yes, I’m quite well.” She forced a smile. “Just overly warm. It’s been so warm today. I’ve noticed. Have you?”
Oh, do shut up.
James raised an eyebrow. “It’s raining.”
“Oh.” She glanced at the window across the hall. The weather took that precise moment to begin storming.Bugger, bugger, bugger.“Of course it is,” she sighed.
Sod everything.
He stepped back and regarded her more closely. “Are you certain you’re all right?”
“I’m not sure. Does embarrassment count as an illness?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Then I’m perfectly fine.” She leaned forward. “My lord, could we pretend the last two minutes never happened?”
Now he looked amused, and his lips curved into a smile, and Emma was struck again by how lovely it was. Even more so without his face obscured by the mask.
“That depends. If I pretend it never happened, do I still run into you? Or do you change course and avoid me all together?”
She had kissed those lips. She had grazed her teeth down the side of that neck and licked his pulse and marked him with her bite. If she were to push aside the collar of his shirt, would it still be there? Would he still wear the impression of her on his skin, a memory imprinted there for him to remember in private? Or would it have healed over, as if she had not existed at all?
Emma swallowed hard and stepped back. “Which would you prefer?” Her voice had dropped a pitch.
James noticed. Now when he looked at her, it was if he were trying to place her.
He must have realized he was staring, because he shook his head. “I’m sorry, what were we discussing?”
Now his words sounded as intimate as if they were in a bedchamber. Emma considered he might be thinking of her — at least, the version of her behind the mask, brazen and seductive.
“Forgetting, ironically enough,” she said, knowing she must sound a bit breathless. “I think the first option is the best choice.”
His eyes met hers. “The first option?”
She smiled. It wasn't like her smile behind the mask, but one just as powerful. “It’s the one where I see you, and I smile as I pass, and I bid you a lovely night.”
English was unwieldy. It didn’t flow off the tongue the way French did, as if it were created to seduce. But Emma Dumont was her mother’s daughter, and she could make any language sound beguiling.
She felt him staring after her as she walked down the hall.
Chapter 9
James’s breath caught when he opened the bedchamber door at the Masquerade and saw Selene. She stood at the table beside the bed, pouring two glasses of wine from the provided decanter.
The dress she wore was crimson, and cut low enough to display the long, pale line of her throat, the tops of her breasts. Her loose, dark hair gleamed in the light from the fire blazing in the hearth.
Siren, she was. More myth than real.
Seeing her should have been like the first drink after a desert trek. But James felt like he was about to drown in her, in this. He should have cared about how he felt himself pulled forward, unable to resist. Losing control and falling down, down, down into this dream they shared.
