Angel in Scarlet (Bound and Determined #4)(35)

“Did you have any trouble getting here?”

“No. My mother is at a musicale this evening, and I simply said I wanted to stay home and finish a book. She knows I am not musical. My brother and father are both out as well, although neither deemed it necessary to inform me of their plans.”

Colton merely smiled.

“You wanted to talk?” she asked, unwilling to face awkward silence.

“Yes, I want you to tell me more of what you want. If we are to go forward, I want to be sure that the needs of both of us are met.”

They were back to this circle, and she didn’t understand why they couldn’t have had this conversation in the park. “I want to please you.”

“No. What do you want? What do you dream of when you lie in bed at night? What are your fantasies?”

Oh, now, that was a little different. And so hard to answer. “Most recently I’ve thought of you and what we’ve done.”

“What in particular?” He leaned forward, resting an elbow on the desk.

“Did you really bring me here to discuss this?”

“Yes. If we are going to do this, then I must understand what it is that makes your heart beat faster, what makes you pant, what makes your juices flow.”

“My juices flow?” She was sounding like a parrot, but even after everything it was hard to believe he meant what he seemed to.

Again he raised that brow.

He did mean that.

“Well,” she tried to begin. “I suppose thinking of you and what we have done. I think about what it was like to watch you bring yourself pleasure.”

“You enjoyed that, did you?”

Did he need her to say these things? “Embarrassment” was too mild a word for the way she was feeling. “Yes.”

“And what of showing me your breasts—did you like that too?”

“Yes. I have already told you I like that.”

“And what exactly did you like: the feeling of your skin, the sensation of your touch, knowing that I found you desirable, the knowledge that somebody else might see?”

She bowed her head. She had dreamed of that; how did he know? “I—I did think about that.”

“And did you like it?”

“In my thoughts it was exciting, but I don’t think I’d really want to have someone watch. Granderson taught me that.”

“But you like my watching?”

She swallowed. “Yes. And I like having you tell me what to do. I liked not having to worry. I liked having no responsibility beyond agreement.”

“And did you dream of being under my command again, of fulfilling my every wish?”

“Yes.” Was he going to give her another command here and now? Her eyes darted about the room.

“You look as if you are having ideas right now, ideas like the ones I am asking you about.”

She didn’t answer.

“Are you imagining what I could do to you? Do you imagine yourself bent over the desk, your skirts raised high? Your ass bare to my touch, to my eyes, to my cock?”

God, she was imagining that. She hadn’t had a good picture, but as he spoke it was all too easy to see, the images clear in her mind. Her breath grew shallow, and she pressed her thighs together.

“What else do you dream of? Have you read Byron and imagined yourself kidnapped by a corsair? Or have you imagined yourself a maid pursued by an eager lord? Or perhaps a schoolgirl with a strict tutor?”

“I—I—I…” She didn’t know what to say. Her eyes dropped to the desk. “I didn’t know enough to imagine before that night in the garden. I’d heard talk of such feelings, but until I felt them it was hard to want them, and since then I’ve been too busy remembering what we have done—although sometimes I think of your hands instead of my own upon me. And I’ve imagined touching your cock, although I am not quite sure what it feels like and what makes it hard.”

“And you never had these thoughts before? Never dreamed in such a way?”

“Sometimes I used to stare at your hands and I would think about them touching my cheek. Your fingers are so long and strong. I wanted to feel them on me.”

“Only your cheek?”

“On other places too, but I wasn’t quite sure what other places would feel like. I knew I liked it when you brushed my cheek.”

“And now?”

“I still don’t know what it will feel like when you touch me anywhere besides my face, although I do have a much better idea.”

“I imagine you do. But back to my earlier question: If we are going to do this, I need more of an idea of what excites you. Surely you must have awoken some morning with a half-remembered dream that left you all a-tingle.”

She was glad she was still looking down, not meeting his eyes. But, even as she had the thought, Colton reached out and placed a single finger under her chin, raising her face to meet his.

“Remember our discussion last night about honesty? Let me see your eyes and know what you think.” He stared at her as if seeking her innermost secrets, and perhaps he was.

This was far harder than anything he had asked of her body. “I sometimes dream of having been an English spy in France during the war. It always seemed most exciting when I heard whispers when I was younger.”