Shayla Black by Strictly Seduction Page B

how can you call me your lover if I don’t make love to you?”
    Maddie couldn’t totally disagree. Still, his wager sounded too dangerous. They would grow close, very nearly intimate, yet she would be no nearer to freeing herself of debt unless he possessed her body completely. Could she take such a scandalous chance? Could she entice him to become her lover in every way when she knew so little about seduction?
    The hells of marriage and the Fleet looming convinced her that she had little choice, except to try.
    “ Agreed,” she whispered finally.
    Brock hesitated an instant before releasing her. A terrible vulnerability assailed her. She crossed her arms over her chest, as if that would save her from his searing gaze, which seemed to unravel her composure, layer by layer. He could never know how she feared the effect his nearness had on her self-control. He would have no hesitation in using it against her.
    “ So will you return here tomorrow night?” She fought to keep the tremor from her voice.
    “ Why wait?”
    With wide, wary eyes, she watched as he pulled out a Yorkshire bow back chair from behind the small breakfast table and sat. He bounced as if testing its weight before he raised his gaze to her, wearing a supremely satisfied grin.
    “ Come here,” he said, crooking his finger.
    She didn’t like his mood shifts, from tender to challenging, from serious to playful, any more than she liked his actions. Did he want her on that chair? In his lap? The thought filled her with a sharp clench of forbidden need.
    “ No,” she said automatically.
    His generous mouth turned down. “That’s not the answer a good mistress would give.”
    “ You said you did not seek a mistress.”
    “ But if that’s what you seek to be, should you not act the part? You cannot seduce me into bedding you if you are not close enough for me to touch.”
    He was right, she realized with panic. She was going to have to let him put his hands on her body, in any manner he desired. At any time. The thought made her feel faint. Yes, she had always known he would do so if he made her his mistress, but she had assumed that would be about creating his pleasure, not seducing her until she experienced her own.
    “ Come here,” he repeated sternly.
    Maddie’s body thrummed at the mere sound of his voice. It filled her with images of his hands on her aching breasts, his mouth clinging to her own. That self-reliant core in her resisted the idea of leading herself like a lamb to his slaughter.
    But she had no choice.
    Trembling, she took slow steps toward him, feeling oddly like a soldier going to battle. Her pulse pounded in her ears with each step, closer, closer, until she stood inches away.
    Without a word, he knelt at her feet. His fingers brushed her ankles, her quaking calves and thighs, as he lifted her skirts and snowy petticoats about her hips, nearly exposing her to his hungry gaze. Cool air and the heat of his stare hit her as he sat again, skirts in hand, and watched her face.
    With little effort, Brock lifted her and slid her onto his lap, legs spread on either side of his hips. Maddie gasped. He did not pause until her skirts billowed around them, fabric rustling like a lover’s whisper.
    He brought her tight against his erection. She gasped. The crush of his steely shaft pressing against her feminine mound through his breeches flooded her with sharp yearning. He smelled of night and insistence and musk as he clasped her hips and held her close. Wriggling for freedom only caused a riot of sensation to burst between her legs. The ache there turned tighter, more insistent.
    Blast it, Colin had always called her cold and unresponsive. Why wasn’t she now?
    His steady green stare touched her mouth, then caressed on the swells of her breasts. Everywhere his gaze lingered turned hot until she was burning up from the inside.
    “ I want you,” he murmured.
    She responded to his husky assertion like a flower, yearning to open for him,