Reckless - By Anne Stuart Page 0,77

this rate he could make her come just by talking to her.

Adrian Rohan was a dangerous man. Too dangerous for her.

“No," she said, her voice wobbling slightly when she wanted it firm. "I'm telling you no."

"All right," he said amiably, not at all shattered by her rejection. "There are endless women who'd happily lift their skirts for me. I don't need to force anyone. I thought you might enjoy another taste of the forbidden, but since you so clearly regret our time together I'll find someone else."

Her head was going to explode. She needed her mask, but in their wrestling match it had been crushed. She reached behind her for the hood of the domino and tried to pull it over her head, but his hands caught hers. "No, you don't. Not that I don't despise the hair powder—that must have been Lady Whitmore's asinine idea. It's a crime to cover hair as glorious as yours."

"Stop it," she said. Good. Her unshed tears were making her voice hoarse, and it came out sounding calm and angry. "Why did you...did you...?"

"Why did I fuck the sweet hell out of you a few weeks ago at the gathering of the Heavenly Host?

Because you were there, and I must admit I enjoyed myself tremendously. I'm afraid I don't need a great deal of motivation for these things. In your case I imagine it was the novelty of it all. I'd forgotten all about you, and then there you were, right in front of me. Just like tonight. I have to say it seems like Providence, since I hadn't made any other arrangements for female companionship tonight. But if you'd rather not, then so be it. Perhaps Lady Whitmore might be interested in providing me with entertainment."

His calm, cruel words were like knives, and yet she didn't flinch. Later, when she was alone, the words would sink in, but for right now she was too angry, too proud to let him see how he'd wounded her.

"I doubt Lina would be interested," she said in a cool voice. "She doesn't usually want my leftovers."

"Brava," he said softly. "Fight back."

Which was exactly what she planned to do. "As for novelty, you'd be a fool to try to repeat it. You can only deflower someone once, and as you've pointed out, I'm hardly the kind of woman you usually dally with. You prefer beauties, women who are adept at pleasing a man, who know all sorts of tricks and games to please you. You wouldn't want to bother with a clumsy spinster again."

"True... But she was so delightfully besotted with me.”

She wanted to kill him. If she'd had a knife she probably would have stabbed him. As it was, she had nothing but words to hit back with.

"You took care of that, my lord," she said, not bothering to deny it. "One night with you is a most effective cure."

It was supposed to infuriate him. Instead he laughed softly. "Of course it is. And it was two nights.

You don't want me to kiss you, do you?"

"The thought disgusts me."

He moved closer, and she could feel his body heat in the cool night air. "And you don't want my mouth on your breasts, sucking your nipples into hard little berries.” It didn't need his mouth—his words had had the same effect as she felt her nipples tighten.

Fortunately he couldn't see beneath the layer of clothes she wore. "Absolutely not."

"And you don't want my mouth between your legs, my tongue teasing you into such peaks of pleasure that you cry out?"

She was wet now. He probably knew it, but it didn't matter. "I'm not fond of perversion."

"I suppose that means I can't talk you into taking my cock into your mouth then."

She was so shocked she couldn't find the words to refute it. finally she said, "You sick bastard."

"Oh, my love, not sick at all. It's quite lovely, and some women, the very best of women, enjoy it as well. So I gather this means you don't want me inside you, riding you, pumping you, making you cry and scream with pleasure?"

"You're a pig," she snapped.

"It's a pig's world. So the answer is no, my precious?"

The smug, cruel bastard. The beautiful, wicked, hurtful man with the hands of a devil and the mouth of an angel. He would take her back to Grosvenor Square, and she would slink into the house, go up to her room and curl up into the ball he talked about.

"The answer is yes," she