‘Well done,’ she said lightly.
‘I won’t be so clumsy next time,’ he promised her.
She let her hand fall from his shoulder and indicated that he should let go of her too—which he did, with clear reluctance. But Philip’s crush on her was not uppermost in her mind right now.
She was just about to murmur something about her next set, and this time make sure she headed off, when a deep voice sounded close by.
‘Mademoiselle Sabine? I trust you will give me equal pleasure?’
She started, her head twisting. Bastiaan Karavalas was bearing down on them as the music moved on to another number. A distinctly slower number.
He gave her no chance to refuse. An amused nod of dismissal at his cousin and then, before she could take the slightest evasive action, Sarah’s hand had been taken, her body was drawn towards his by the placing of his large, strong hand at her waist, and she was forced to lift her other hand and let it rest as lightly as she could on his shoulder. Then he was moving her into the dance—his thigh pressing blatantly against hers to impel her to move.
Instinctively Sarah tried to pres
erve her composure, though her heart was pounding in her ribcage. Her body was as stiff as a board, her muscles straining away from him as if she could increase the narrow gap between their bodies. His answer was to curve his fingers into her waist, and with effortless strength secure his hold on her again.
He smiled down at her.
It was a smile of pure possession.
Sarah could feel her blood surging in her body, quickening in every vein, heating her from within as she moved against his possessive clasp.
‘So, mademoiselle, on what shall we converse?’
His smile had given way to a question in which both irony and amusement were mingled. And something else too—something she could not give a name to, but which seemed to send yet another quiver of excruciating physical awareness of his closeness to her.
Yet again she found herself clinging to the persona of Sabine. Sabine could cope with this—Sabine could let the potently powerful Bastiaan Karavalas sweep her off and yet keep her cool about it. Keep her composure. So what would Sabine do...say...?
‘The choice is yours, m’sieu,’ she answered, managing to keep her tone somewhere between insouciant and indifferent. Social...civil...just this side of courteous. She made herself meet his gaze, the way Sabine undoubtedly would—for what would Sabine be overset by in those dark, sensual eyes? And Sabine’s ridiculously long fake lashes helped, Sarah thought with gratitude, because their length made it easier for her to look at him with a veiled expression—helped her feel protected from the impact those deep, dark eyes were having on her...
Abruptly, he spoke, yanking her back to full focus. ‘Why did you not mention that you had already made my acquaintance?’ he said.
Sarah felt her eyes widening. There was only one answer to give. ‘Why didn’t you?’ she said. She sought to copy the dismissive inflection that Sabine would surely give.
Her answer was a sudden opacity in his gaze. ‘You must know why—’ he said.
From his dark, deep-set eyes a message blazed that was as clear as day...as old as time.
Sarah could feel her breath catch in her throat, her pulse leap—and suddenly Sabine, with all her worldly defences, felt a long, long way away.
‘Why did you refuse to come to dinner with me?’ Again, the question was blunt—challenging. Taking her by surprise.
‘You were a complete stranger.’ She sought for the only explanation that was relevant—whether or not it was one that Sabine would have made.
Thoughts flickered across her mind like random electric currents. Would Sabine have found that objectionable? Or would she have made her decision about whether to let a man take her to dinner—and what might follow—on quite different grounds?
Such as if the man were the most devastating male she’d ever set eyes on—who’d had the most powerful impact on her she’d ever experienced—who’d stilled the breath in her lungs and sent her pulse into overdrive...
But she was given no opportunity to think coherently about that, or about anything at all, because now his eyes had a glint in them that was setting her pulse racing even faster.
‘Well, I am not a stranger now.’
Not when I hold you in the intimacy of this embrace...your soft, satiny body in my arms, the warmth of your palm against mine, the brush of your thighs as we move to the music together...
He felt the flush of heat beating in his veins. Telling him how susceptible he was to what she possessed.
The power to make him desire her...