He might as well have tossed a grenade across the table. I lowered the linen napkin I’d pressed to my lips and set it beside my plate. I swallowed hard. And suddenly, I couldn’t bear all that bright blue regard. “That’s not our arrangement.”
“Is it money?” He lifted a shoulder. “I will pay you whatever you wish, of course.”
“It’s not the money.” The moment I said that, I thought better of it. What enterprising prostitute said such a thing? Of course it was about the money, as it should be. “Every night is the same price, rest assured. But this? You? One night only, as agreed.”
A brow lifted in a way that told me he was used to great swaths of underlings vaulting about to tend to his every whim, expressed or not. “Why?”
It would have been different if he’d seemed upset. Or too...determined, in any of the ways that might have tripped alarms in me. But he didn’t. Instead, he lounged back in his seat as if this was all a foregone conclusion, and I had the impression of a predator trying to hide in plain sight. The intense focus in those bright blue eyes didn’t fade in the least.
“Our arrangement was for one night,” I reminded him primly.
“Then let’s change the arrangement.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Darcy.” The folly of telling him my name was all too apparent then, because it was exactly as I’d intended. He used my name, and it felt intimate. It felt real. I might cling to these things later, but they only made this moment harder to navigate. “If an item is for sale, and I have the money required to purchase it, there is no reason I shouldn’t have it. Is there?”
I made myself laugh, bright and sparkling. “My feeling is that a performer should never commit to more performances than she knows she can do well.”
And I tried to smile the way I imagined a burlesque dancer would. More earthy, less regal. More happy hooker and less hungry princess.
When his expression took on that intent look again, I figured that whatever I was doing, it was working.
“I’ve been doing this awhile,” I continued. I meant dancing, of course, but he could think whatever he liked. “There’s a certain point where the spirit might be willing, but the body can’t quite keep up. I prefer to make sure I get all the beauty sleep I need.”
“Why do I not quite believe you, little dancer?”
He asked the question in such an idle, offhand way that I almost confessed the truth. That he was right not to believe me, because I was full of it. Apart from the practicalities and the papers I’d signed, I knew I couldn’t let myself have another night with him because it was a high possibility that I’d forget myself completely. I’d tell him who I was. I’d beg him for more. I’d ruin this fantasy by shoving it too far into reality, and that would destroy the whole thing.
I didn’t want the reality of him, because I wasn’t sure I could handle it. I wanted this high-octane night of endless sex and happy obedience. I wanted his cock in my mouth and my knees on a hard floor. Not the mundane reality of another man I wouldn’t have enough time for and who would irritate me before the month was out.
This was the only way I could have him just like this, forever. It was my fantasy. It belonged in the dark, in my bed, and in reality for only one night. I didn’t want to bring it out into the light where it would inevitably spoil.
No matter how much I thought I might like to roll around in the sunlight with him.
“One night,” I said quietly.
“Very well. If that’s what you want.”
“It is.”
My hands were in my lap and I laced them tightly together, then squeezed, to remind me that this really wasn’t a dinner date of any kind. I was not here to ask his name. Or to question him at all. I was here to do what I did best: look pretty, bend in every direction, and smile at the applause.
I’d expected the fantasy to be potent, no matter the man. I hadn’t expected him to be as potent as the taboo.
He was still studying me as if he could see what he wanted that way. He toyed with stem of the wineglass before him, using those same strong fingers that had made me weep with passion. And I wanted to break the mood. I was naked and entirely too aware of my body. The tightness of my nipples pulled into points. The melting, slippery heat between my legs.
That trembling thing, deep inside, that I knew had nothing to do with the fantasy and everything to do with me.
I slid from my chair, sinking down to my knees beside it. Then I tipped myself forward onto all fours and kept my eyes on him. There wasn’t much space between us, but I made the most of it. I crawled, sensuous and deliberate, from my chair to his.
“What are you doing, little dancer?” His voice sounded darker than before, but indulgent.
“It was such a good dinner.” My voice was husky when I reached him. I ran my hands up over the hair-roughened muscles of his thighs, pushing the towel out of my way as I went. “I thought there had to be dessert.”
He didn’t order me to stop. He didn’t tell me to sit back, drop my hands, or await his orders. He only stared down at me, heat and greed and something darker on his hard, beautiful face. I followed my gut feeling, and that trembling thing inside me. I cupped him in one palm, and wrapped the fingers of my other hand around the shaft of his cock. He was already hard, and he thickened even more as I gripped him.
I kept my eyes locked to his as I leaned closer, circling the plump head with my tongue.