'Thank you, but I don’t wish to learn any more!' she snapped, forgetting her supplicant's role.
He tilted his head. 'Lost your taste for excitement already, chérie?’ he murmured.
She drank her champagne sullenly, feeling that control of the situation was rapidly escaping her uncertain grasp.
'Or was your Uncle Simon just trying to inject some much needed colour and verve into your highly organised existence at some advantage to himself? All work and no play digs Eliza-Beth into a very dull home rut. With your university job and your domestic responsibility for your uncles and their eccentric business you seem to have precious little active social life for an unattached twenty-five-year-old...'
She visibly simmered at his mocking description of her hitherto contented life. 'You have been a busy boy,' she said nastily.
Her sarcasm fell very flat. 'Man, chérie, man—there's a very important distinction there which I would be enchanted to demonstrate. But I'm sure you wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t realised that...'
She wasn’t entirely sure whether he was referring to her confession of something he already knew or her opinion of his masculinity, so she decided that she might as well take her chances. She leaned forward to set her empty glass on the coffee-table in front of her, aware of the soft light from the lamp falling across her provocative cleavage, the pale swell of her breasts mantled with a faint blush from the long day's unaccustomed exposure to sun and alcohol.
'Oh, I'm sure I've experienced enough social life in my dull existence to make my own distinctions,' she said huskily. She slipped off her high-heeled shoes and flexed her legs, tipping her head back against the raised arm of the sofa as she groaned softly. 'Oh, that feels good; those shoes pinch terribly, but they were the only ones that went with my dress.' She half closed her eyes, looking at him through the lashes, a little thrill passing through her at the wickedness of her intent. ‘I bought it after I saw it in the window of the hotel boutique this afternoon.'
He could scarcely avoid the compliment she invited, but he made it uniquely and scandalously his own.
‘I thought I recognised it. Or is it the body underneath that seems so familiar? Your superb breasts are exquisitely memorable and you have the most beautiful back I've ever seen... or touched.' He toasted her with his glass, and with a caressing survey that extended from the top of her sleek head to the tips of her toes. ‘I think it may have something to do with your paleness, when every other woman in the casino tonight was flaunting a leathery tan. Your legs, too, are wonderfully displayed ... but isn’t it hot wearing black tights in this climate?'
Trust Jack to so effortlessly discompose her, but Elizabeth was determined not to let him see how bone-deep her blushing reaction went. She had worn black to slim her legs, not to emphasise them, after she had realised that the dress was shorter than it had looked on the mannequin.
‘I’m not wearing tights,' she told him archly. ‘I find stockings much cooler and... freer...'
And with that outrageous comment she lifted her legs and placed her feet boldly across his thighs, lying back against the cushions piled on the end of the couch. 'Would you mind helping iron out the kinks? My feet do ache so from those high heels ...'
For a fleeting moment all expression was wiped clean from his face then, wordlessly, he bent and set his own glass down on the floor, and cupped one of her feet with both hands, looking at it with a hungry, sensual curve to his mouth as if he was contemplating taking a bite out of it. Slowly he adjusted his grip, one large hand running caressingly over the top of her foot to bracelet her ankle, the other beginning to knead the tender sole firmly.
'Why do you wear heels if they hurt your feet?'
‘I need the extra inches,' she murmured, closing her eyes. She had never had her feet rubbed before and was alarmed at how good it felt.
'Too short, too big...is there anything about yourself that you are happy with?' he said wryly, rubbing his fingers along the base of her toes and up underneath them with a rhythmic insistence that made her gasp inaudibly.
'My brain,' she said smartly, to counteract the tingling tendrils of warmth that were darting up her legs.
'Mmm... and what is your brain telling you now, chérie?'
He was massaging the ball of her foot, and to her dismay his question was rapidly becoming unanswerable. She opened her eyes, the better to divorce herself from the blissful sensations that were turning the aforesaid brain to mush, and found him watching her.
'Er—that what you're doing feels good,' she said stupidly.
He smiled faintly and only with his mouth, his eyes remaining glitteringly intent. 'And this, does this feel good, too?' he murmured. His hand moved and pressed and something melted deep inside her. With horror Elizabeth wondered if her foot was one of her uncharted erogenous zones, which, given her potentially explosive libido, was quite possible. If so, she had just made an awful mistake.
'F-fine. Great. Er—that's much better, thank you. I think that's enough now-'
She tried to repossess her legs but he prevented her by the simple tactic of splaying the hand on her ankle to encompass both and pinning them firmly against his rock-hard thigh.
'Nonsense,' he purred, 'we're just getting started. Do you know, Beth, that there are some who believe that by massaging certain parts of the soles of the feet you can benefit certain parts of the body... ?'
'Really?' she said faintly, more trapped than she would have been if he had captured her hands. With her short skirt she couldn’t struggle without subjecting him to flagrant indecency.
'Yes, really. Here, for example. When I press just here do you feel a response somewhere else in your body...?' It was auto-suggestion, it had to be, she told herself desperately as his eyes slid to her breasts and they began to ache within the tight confines of her dress.
'No...' Her voice was stifled as she tried to control her breathing.
'Then here...?'
‘No!' She came up off the cushions, her torso supported on her braced arms, her knees pressed tightly together, legs stiffening.