Beauty Tempts the Beast (Sins for All Seasons #6) - Lorraine Heath Page 0,29

touch, where to touch, how to caress, how to drive a man mad with ecstasy.”

Silence stretched between them until all she could hear was the tick, tick, tick of the clock on the mantel, the occasional hiss of the fire. Without taking his gaze from her, he reached back, grabbed his glass, tapped a finger against it, took a sip. How was it possible for the man to mask every thought, every emotion?

“If I were your brother, I’d break my jaw and nose before blackening my eye for good measure for even giving your proposal serious thought and not immediately dismissing it.”

He was so incredibly somber, so serious. “I’m not going to tell Griff about this part of our arrangement. I’m going to tell him only that I’ll be residing here, teaching etiquette. I’m not even going to reveal it’s a brothel.”

Another sip of the scotch. She longed for the sherry but didn’t want to reveal that her fingers were trembling as she awaited his answer.

“I have a strict rule I adhere to, one I’ve never broken. The women under my protection are forbidden to me. I don’t take advantage of them. I don’t bed them. You’ll be under my protection.”

Disappointment slammed into her. “What if I didn’t reside here?”

“I would still see myself as responsible for you.”

Perhaps the ladies could teach her. Although how would she become comfortable with the touch of a man if a man wasn’t touching her? She didn’t want to admit that she was anticipating his caress, feeling the graze of his fingers along more than the underside of her jaw. “Surely, you could teach what I need to know without a full consummation. I should think that would be to my benefit. To be proficient but pure.”

He studied her as though striving to envision it. A woman who was a contradiction, who knew how to pleasure but had never been pleasured fully.

“As much as you want out of this business,” she said quietly, hoping her words could be heard over the thundering of her heart, “that is how badly I seek to master it.”

His magnificent jaw tightened, and she wondered if seduction might involve scraping a razor over it, listening to the rasp of the bristles as they were removed, then kissing the smooth skin that remained.

Finally, he gave a long, slow nod. “I have the ability to instruct you on how to be a temptress without violating my principles.”

He was rather certain that with those words, he’d just condemned himself to an early grave. Because satisfying the temptation of touching her without possessing her fully was going to kill him.

When she released a shaky, shuddering breath, slumped back against the chair, and jerked her gaze to the fire as though she wanted to spare him the sight of the relief that filled her eyes with tears, he knew for certain he had the right of it: he was a dead man.

He shot to his feet and strode to the corner in desperate need of more scotch. He would probably spend the remainder of his life wondering why the devil he’d agreed to her terms. Maybe it was because he couldn’t stand the thought of her seeking assistance elsewhere, and it had become increasingly clear that she was set on this path, and no argument he offered was going to sway her otherwise. Or perhaps it was simply that from the first moment his gaze had landed on her, he’d wanted her with a fierceness that defied all logic.

The irony was not lost on him. He wanted to get six women out of the business and to accomplish that, he had to introduce one more into it. At least she’d be more selective, more exclusive. He wondered if she’d change her mind if he paid her a salary of a thousand pounds. But then that would make him no different than the other men in her life, striving to control the direction she traveled.

He downed the scotch, poured some more, and turned back toward her. She’d returned to the window, the late-morning sunlight forming a halo around her. A delicate angel. That was what he’d thought the first time he saw her. But bloody hell, there was steel inside her, and a bit of a devilish nature as well.

“Would you like more sherry?”

“No, I have to report for work in a couple of hours.”

He wandered over to the window, placed his shoulder against the casing, welcomed the bite of its hard edge. “I’ll have