Page 46 of The Rose (The Godwicks 2)

If Lia had the Rose Kylix in her hands at that moment, she might have thrown it at him.

“That isnotwhat I was talking about.” Lia took a deep breath, tried to calm her rising panic. “I meant I needed toemotionallyprepare myself. Mind-body connection, you know.”

“I’m not going to put my cock in your brain,” he said. “Although in certain positions it can feel like that, I hear. Your ankles on my shoulders, for example. Can get very deep. Want to try it?”

Lia tried not to picture that. She failed. August unbuckled his belt. So much for calming her wild breathing.

“Please stop that,” she said.

He took his hands off his belt and held them up like a suspect surrendering to the police.

“It was your idea—and a very good idea at that. Why are you so scared?”

“Haven’t done it in a long time. I barely know you. You’re older than I am. You’ve had sex with a cloud. Shall I go on?”

“Yes, go on,” he said.

“I thought we could wait until after we drank from the kylix. Saturday night when I came to it was like...if you’d been in my room, I might have done something illegal to your body. Possibly even lethal.”

“Oh my.” His eyes went wide. He looked positively scandalized. “You realize if we’d made love after, we would have been doing it under the influence. I’d rather we make love the first time in our right minds.”

This was a good point. Lia wished he would stop making good points.

She paused, took a breath. “Despite my profession—and yes, I know how prissy that sounds—I don’t have a lot of confidence in this arena. I’ve been with a couple men but I never could, you know, get there.”

“No orgasms?”

“Not with someone. I mean, to do that you really have to trust someone, right? Let down your guard? I’m not good at that.”

“And that’s why you’re hiring me, yes? To help you learn how to let your guard down?”

“I can’t remember the last time I cried about anything,” Lia said. “You know, until Saturday night when you gave me my book. I’d started to think I couldn’t cry anymore. Maybe you can help with that other problem, too.”

August gave her a long searching look. His strange stormy eyes were full of what appeared to be compassion. “He didn’t just cheat on you, did he? What did he do?”

“Nothing I can talk about,” she said. “It was very bad. All you need to know.”

He didn’t press, and she appreciated that.

“You’ve been hurt,” he surmised. “The sooner you sleep with me, the sooner you’ll start to feel much, much better, I promise. I’m not being glib. I do this job for a reason, and that reason is I’m very good at making my patrons feel very good.”

August touched her chin, gently, and tilted her face up to meet his gaze.

“I changed my mind,” she said. “I’ll just sell the Rose Kylix to the highest bidder. Rule, Britannia.”

She slapped the arms of her chair and stood up.

“Or you can sit there and watch me take my clothes off,” he said.

“Also a viable option.” She sat down again. She could always leaveafterhe took his clothes off. And she would. But she ought to see what she was paying for first. Right?

August pulled off his shirt, and she stared, as if hypnotized, as he tossed it onto his jacket. The jeans next. There were no underclothes to bother with.

He stepped in front of her completely naked.

He was magnificent. There existed no other word for him in any language. He had an athlete’s form and a boy’s beauty and a man’s cock. He held out both arms to his sides and slowly turned in a circle—displaying himself to her like goods on the auction block. And where was her bidding paddle when she needed it?

Muscled arms etched with veins. Broad, long, smooth back. Narrow waist. A perfect arse. Endless legs with thighs corded with muscle. There was no comparing his skin to velvet or silk or stone or steel. He was smooth hard male flesh, all of him. His pulse beat at the base of his throat. She tried to meet his eyes, but her gaze wandered down to the tattoo of the three-petal rose on his lower stomach. The urge to press her tongue to it was almost overwhelming. Her stomach contracted, her breaths grew short and shallow, and her fingernails dug into the leather chair arm when she allowed herself the pleasure of looking at his cock.

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