The warning in his voice was firm, dominant, and pushed some feminine button she hadn’t known she possessed that urged her to just relent. To obey him, just this once, just in case he had a way of enforcing it in some erotic manner she couldn’t fight.
“I don’t slow dance,” she bit out from between her teeth, her body longing to relax and melt against him even as she fought to remain stiff and unyielding. “Slow dancing with you will imply a relationship that doesn’t exist.”
She didn’t want that. It would change the dynamic of who she was and the information to be gained in the circles she moved in.
“A relationship that doesn’t exist? Who are you lying to, Gypsy? Because I sure as hell know better and you do as well,” he informed her warningly as he moved against her, cajoling her, seducing her into sharing the dance, to share the intimacy he was inviting.
“You’re taking far too much for granted,” she retorted furiously, yet she wasn’t fighting him either.
She was breathless.
She could feel the blood heating, pounding through her veins, the sensual side of her nature weakening far too quickly.
She ached for him. The flesh between her thighs became hotter, wetter, her clit throbbing as her sex melted and creamed for him.
It was impossible to deny she wanted him when her body refused to cooperate and remain cool and unresponsive.
“I haven’t yet,” he said softly as she tilted her head back to stare up at him. “But I’m certain I will before the night’s out, Gypsy Rum. I’m very certain of it.”
Before she could argue the statement or tell him to go to hell, he brushed his lips against hers, his tongue flicking in a quick little lick against her lips before he pulled back no more than a breath of distance.
The pleasure was shocking.
It held her in his arms, staring up at him in confusion as impulses, hungers and needs began firing through her body with a heat she hadn’t expected.
It surprised her.
Shocked her.
His lips had lifted just far enough from hers to tease her, to make her wonder if he would speak, and when he did, if his lips would stroke against her again.
His gaze was locked on hers, unblinking, the blue of his eyes deeper than Cassandra’s, more mesmerizing, holding her, making her wonder at what she saw reflected back at her.
There was so much in his gaze. A hint of another color, perhaps, a world of hunger, of need, a deep, brilliant pool of male lust so vibrant it made her wonder if he was even aware he was revealing it.
“Why?” she whispered.
Why her? Why was he pushing this when it was more than obvious she was hesitant to begin anything with him?
“Why not?” It wasn’t the question, but the tone of voice, the look in his eyes, that shocked her.
Steel-hard determination, pure male hunger and narrow-eyed possessiveness struck at her, wrapped around her and made her wonder if she was smothering from fear, or breathless from anticipation.
“Leave with me,” he asked her then.
Eyes widening before she could stop the reaction, she parted her lips to refuse, though forming the word didn’t come easily.
“Just to talk.” His finger landed against her lips, holding back what she wanted to say but couldn’t. “I want you, bad enough to wait if I have to. But if I have to wait, at least torture me for a few hours.”
“And that would be enough for you?” she quipped mockingly despite the flush of arousal that was beginning to heat her body.
God, how long had it been since she had allowed herself to want a man? If she even thought she would be attracted to one, she ran in the opposite direction as fast as possible.
“It’s more than I have otherwise.” The seductive roughness of his voice stroked against her senses as she wondered why she wasn’t trying to run as hard and as fast as possible from him.
Gypsy breathed in slowly, deeply.
“I promise, no means no,” he said.