was doing. No one got to that level of skill without a lot of experience, but still, she had her rules. She wasn’t a one-night stand kind of woman.
She locked the bathroom door and turned on the golden faucets. In the small, white, antique cupboard she found bath salts and dumped them liberally into the hot water. What kind of bachelor had scented bath salts in his guest bathroom? One who entertained all the time—that was for certain. She was grateful the fragrance didn’t worsen the churning in her stomach; in fact, it seemed to make it a little better.
Waiting for the claw-foot tub to fill, she pulled off her long gown and walked slowly over to the full-length mirror to stare at her body. She felt different. Not just a little different but very different. Her body was the same yet not. She had marks and smudges all over her. Little bites and bigger ones. A shiver went through her as she remembered how each of those brands had been placed so deliberately. She’d gloried in that last night. All night. She’d wanted him to mark her. She touched one smudge along her thigh, and instantly her feminine sheath clenched with need. For him. Tariq.
Charlotte cupped her breast, her thumb sliding across her nipple, and instantly she had a vision of his mouth over her soft mound. Sensation followed, the stroking of his fingers, the heat of his mouth, the erotic bite of his teeth. She touched the exact spot where his teeth scraped and bit, sending a streak of lightning straight to her clit. The impression was so real that damp heat collected and her body felt empty and needy all over again.
She wanted him for her lover. For her man. She wanted him to belong to her exclusively. Did men like Tariq Asenguard commit to one woman when they had several clubs and thousands of women to choose from? That was highly unlikely.
She touched the dark strawberry on the swell of her breast. Two tiny puncture wounds from his teeth were there, and once again sensations swamped her. That bite of pain resonated deep inside of her. She gasped as she felt the burn. The need settled into a continuous torture. She would never be free of her hunger for him.
The fragrance of the bath salts helped to soothe her when a part of her wanted to cry. She would never be the same, but did she even want to be? Did she wish she’d never met him—spent a long, beautiful, perfect night with him? Sinking down into the steaming water, she had to admit, she wouldn’t have traded the experience for anything. Not. Ever.
She’d felt loved and protected. Safe with him. She’d trusted him with her body. Not just her body, she realized, but with her soul and maybe even her heart. It was impossible to fall for a man she barely knew, but they’d shared such intimacy she felt connected to him in ways she’d never connected to another human being.
The water soothed her body and she closed her eyes to savor the feeling. She was very sore, but every movement was a delicious reminder of his possession. She pulled her legs up and rested her head against the tops of her knees.
She was still tired, almost in a fog, but she couldn’t allow herself to take advantage of Genevieve by letting her take charge of Lourdes’s first day at the Asenguard compound. She just needed a few minutes to get herself under control. What was she going to do? You didn’t sleep with the boss. Essentially, if she took the job of restoring his carousels—and she wanted the job very, very much; it was her dream job—she couldn’t make the mistake of sleeping with the boss.
Of course she hadn’t actually accepted the job yet. But she would if she hadn’t already blown it. If he had the wooden horses Ricard Beaudet had shown her in the photographs, she had to take the job. Ricard had been so excited, believing them to be some of the oldest carousel horses in existence. Where a collector in the United States had gotten such treasures, Ricard didn’t know, but he was certain they were authentic. If they were, Charlotte wanted to be the one to restore their splendor to the world, but . . . Her boss. She’d thrown herself at Tariq, and she still wanted him . . . desperately.
“Almost desperately,” she corrected herself, not believing it,