Page 31 of The Art of Sinning
“Why not?”
“You’re not even supposed to know brothels exist, much less what is done in them.”
“Being respectable doesn’t prevent me from being curious.” When he merely kept sketching, she added, “It’s not as if I’m like the average lady. I’m lying here half-naked at midnight so a rogue can paint me. That’s hardly the behavior of a saint.”
“It’s hardly the behavior of a sinner, either.” He shot her a hard glance. “To be a sinner, you have to do more with the rogue than be painted by him. You have to sin with him.”
She swallowed. “And that would be unwise.”
“It certainly would,” he snapped, and returned to sketching.
Perversely, that peeved her. For a scoundrel, he was being awfully gentlemanly.
Or was she simply not attractive enough to tempt him? Perhaps she’d imagined all those heated looks. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d misinterpreted a man’s interest in her. “Don’t youwantto sin with me?”
Oh, Lord, she couldn’t believe she’d blurted that out.
His face went stony. “The art of sinning isn’t for novices, my lady. I have neither the time nor the inclination to teach it to an innocent.”
She felt as if she’d been slapped in the face. She could tell a mere excuse when she heard one. “I should have realized you were just blathering nonsense earlier.” She choked down her disappointment, struggling not to let him see it. “All those references to my ‘magnificence’ and being a ‘goddess.’ You didn’t mean a word of it.”
He strode up to glare at her. “I am not a man who lies, as a general rule.”
“No, but you flatter well enough when you want something, don’t you?”
He stepped nearer, a dangerous flicker in his icy eyes. “Oh? And what is it that you think I want, exactly?”
“This painting, of course. Though I still have no idea why you had to havemefor it.” She was worked up now, feeling hurt and betrayed and once again left out in the cold when it came to men. “No matter what you said about my ‘attractions,’ it clearly has nothing to do with that, or by now you would have—”
She halted, mortified by what she’d almost admitted.
The harsh lines in his face softened, and his gaze warmed. Then it dropped to her lips. “I would have what?” He tugged her arm down, then lifted his hand to smooth his thumb over her lower lip. “Done this?” He caressed her hot cheek. “Or maybe this?”
Her breath froze in her throat. She hadn’t meant to provoke him to—
Well, of course she had, madwoman that she was. She should put an end to what he was doing; she knew quite well what it could lead to. But even as she opened her mouth to protest, he curved his hand behind her neck and bent toward her.
“No, you want more than that, don’t you?” he murmured, within a breath of her lips. “Something decidedly more sinful, I would imagine.”
Then he was kissing her, his lips molding hers, tasting hers. But before she’d even registered it, he drew back. “That’swhat you were hoping for, I suppose.”
Hardly. It was the most chaste kiss she could imagine—which proved that his fervent need to paint her had naught to do with her and how she looked.
“Even the stodgiest of my suitors kisses better than that. So I think we’ve established that you don’t—”
With a low oath, he kissed her again—harder, rougher.Sinful.This time she felt it to her toes. Then he hauled her up so he could clasp the back of her head and hold her still while his mouth covered hers more fully.
Every inch of her turned soft. Pliant. Yearning. She gripped his arms, meaning to push him back but clutching him closer instead. He groaned low in his throat, then pressed her lips apart so he could plunge his tongue inside her mouth.
Heavenly day. This kiss was intense and hot, the best she’d had in her life. He plundered her mouth in long, silky strokes that had her stomach doing somersaults and her blood pounding madly in her veins. Who knew that a mere kiss could turn one into a seething knot of sensation?
Some instinct made her entwine her tongue with his, and he froze, then kissed her more wildly, more deeply, with urgent, heady thrusts that had her straining up against him.
It was so thrilling and reckless. Unlike the lieutenant, he wasn’t trying to steal her garter or some other token to use against her; he was too involved in the kiss for that. While his mouth ravished hers, he gripped her thighs as if to urge them apart, and she opened them to bring him closer, into the V of her legs. It was a far more intimate position than she’d intended, especially since it made the costume bunch up about her hips.
Now he was clasping her thighs. Good Lord! Even with her drawers between his flesh and hers, it felt so deliciously wicked.
He tore his mouth free to trail warm, openmouthed kisses up her cheek to her ear. “Do youreallynot know how much you tempt me?”
