The Marquess Who Loved Me - By Sara Ramsey Page 0,40
but I doubt the market would have it.”
“I don’t know. I find myself quite…moved.”
His voice could cast a spell as seductive as anything Circe might have tried. She finally turned to face him. “Why are you here, Nick? I know it’s your house — your right. But why now?”
He still looked at the painting. It was too late to burn it, even if her blush could set it alight. In a distant voice, he said, “I came back to find a murderer. I shouldn’t have disturbed you tonight, Ellie.”
“Haven’t we always disturbed each other?”
Her voice was low. His answer was even lower. “Always. The gods could not have devised a more perfect punishment than you.”
“Punishment? For what?”
His spine stiffened. “For wanting you. For having you. It never ends well, mortals falling in love with goddesses.”
She shivered. “I’m no goddess.”
He turned. “To me you were. Are. Still. I thought you’d have fallen to earth by now. But when I walked into your party last night and saw you, even more beautiful than before…”
She curled her fingers on the edge of her worktable. “You know I’ve fallen to earth. I’m not an innocent anymore.”
“It had nothing to do with innocence. Unless you regret losing it?”
“I didn’t lose it — I gave it to you,” she said. “Do you regret taking it?”
He closed his eyes. His hands were still behind his back. Circe might have held him like that, awaiting her pleasure. Somewhere, swirling through the moment, Ellie felt a bolt of pure, possessive lust. She wanted him to want her, with something savage driving her to make him say it — even if they both might have been happier forgetting.
“I’ve never regretted it,” he said. “Even if losing you was inevitable.”
She didn’t like that word. It hung between them, frozen and immutable in the chilled air. She wanted fire, not ice — the present, not the past.
Her hair was wrapped around her head for sleep. She removed the pins, catching Nick’s gaze as she did so. She set each pin on the table, but his eyes never left hers. Her braids fell to her waist. She threaded her fingers through the plaits, unraveling them. Her hair would be a riot, messy and bold — the way he liked it.
She had hacked it all off when he left, but she was glad to have it back.
She shook her hair out, and she didn’t miss how his mouth tightened. She could have him again. Starting tomorrow, he would demand it — but she could have him tonight, on her terms. She sensed it in the way he watched her, hope battling avoidance. She’d learned that pleasure didn’t last — but he tempted her as she hadn’t been tempted in years.
“Do you know why I painted you?” she asked, coming around the work table.
He stayed still, his hands behind his back, denying himself as she came to stand in front of him. “Trouble finding models better than me?”
She laughed. The low seduction in his voice thrilled her — told her she could have this. They could have this.
“Perhaps.” She stroked his arm, felt his muscles jump for her. “You were my first, after all.”
“Shall I thank you for the honor?”
Ellie shook her head. “I should thank you. Without you, I might never have known what was…possible from a perfect match.”
“You’re not talking of painting, are you.”
It wasn’t a question. She felt the moment start to slip, to veer into territory she wasn’t ready to explore.
She sighed. “Are you willing to let me seduce you or not?”
His breath hitched. With his shadow of stubble and his missing cravat, he looked like a man startled out of — or into — a delicious dream.
She almost wanted to hang the seduction and paint him instead. But when he reached for her, life became preferable to art.
Their kiss was something they had been born for. If there was anything inevitable, it was how well they fit together — how even after all this time and anyone else who’d come between them, they still knew exactly how to match each other. There was no awkward misalignment, no accidental scraping of teeth. It was like a ballet arranged just for them. They knew their parts by heart. She was hungry for him, desperately so — hungry for that feeling of perfect symmetry, of two halves brought together in a way that never failed to thrill her artist’s soul.
If she was hungry, he was ravenous. His fingers dug into her hair, changed