It’s a party for the debauched.
Feeling like I belong, my eyes settle on the woman in Cole’s arms. Her radiant grin. Her pretty mouth. Her hair I want to pull, breasts I want to explore, arse I’d love to smack.
Provided she gives as good as she gets.
And by give, I mean with her mouth. With words. With the things she says.
Looks only go so far.
Wit is what turns me on sky-high.
So does opportunity, and tonight I plan to engineer it the way I want it to unfold.
Once they’ve danced for long enough, it’s my turn. I stride across the room, purposeful, determined. I tap on her shoulder and flash a smile, the only part of me that’s fully visible from behind this Phantom mask. In my most dashing voice, I ask, “May I have this dance?”
Playing the part of the gentleman, Cole steps away and offers her to me.
My eyes stay on her. She’s hard to read behind that mask. The mesh covers her eyes, and I can barely tell what color they are. But still, even behind the mesh, a hint of color shines through. Like a clear sky. I can see more in those eyes too. A gleam of mischief. A spark of desire.
“Yes, you may,” she says.
I take her hand and close the distance, but not completely. One should always leave a little something to a woman’s imagination. Dancing ought to stimulate desire, suggest entanglements. I leave a few inches between us, the air already crackling and charged. She swallows, her throat moving, a flush darkening her décolletage.
Perfect.
She’s already in the mood to play. Cole moves behind her, pausing briefly at her back. Perhaps pressing against her. Giving her a taste of what she might have.
Something that I would very much enjoy having with her. My favorite indulgence.
But first, let’s see if she’s as captivating as I believe.
Cole moves away, off the dance floor and out of sight. And now it’s just this lovely woman and me. “I was watching you dance earlier,” I tell her, not mincing words, not wasting time.
Her lips curve in a tiny grin. “Did you like what you saw?”
She lifts her chin, her pretty pink lips tilted up toward me, parted the slightest bit, almost like she’s waiting for a kiss. Yet her lips also contain the slightest hint of a question. She’s not ready to kiss yet, and that’s even more alluring.
“I was admiring your dancing. You’re quite good at spinning around the dance floor,” I say in a teasing tone.
“Does that mean you’ve had your eye on me all night?”
I nod, owning it. “Yes. Does that bother you?”
With a coy grin, she asks, “Should it bother me?”
I shake my head. “The opposite. I hope it arouses you.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Oh yes, I believe I chose well. She has so much fire in her. Just the way I like it.
The way we like it.
“I would like to know,” I retort, inching a little closer. “Because I was drawn to you immediately.”
Even from behind the mask, I can tell she rolls her eyes, and that was my intention—to wind her up.
“Is that a line?”
“Do you think it’s a line?”
“It seems like it might be one.”
“It would only be a line if I said something cliché like I can’t take my eyes off you,” I say, dragging out the words, making them exaggerated, as if I’m some sort of pickup artist. “Or if I said, I can’t see anyone else in the room but you.”
She tilts her head, perhaps a little perplexed. “Are you saying neither of those are true?”
“What I’m saying is those are rubbish reasons to tell a woman you’ve had your eye on her all night,” I say, as I slide my hand down her back toward the curve of her arse. The music pulses around us, thrumming over us, behind us, through us.
“Then what’s a non-rubbish reason?” she asks, a little breathy, a lot intrigued.
I spin her around then drag her close, her stomach against mine, but still the slightest bit of distance between her breasts and my chest. My hand travels the other direction now, going north, my fingertips spreading across the fabric of her corset. She shivers as my hands play along her back. “I’ve had my eye on you all night because you’re the most interesting woman in the room.”
She shivers against me, a full-body tremble that seems to start in her collarbone and radiate down her chest. I can feel her shuddering against me. My God, she’s like an instrument, and she’ll be gorgeous to play.
She’s a cello, and I want to feel her against me, under me, around me.
“And what makes me so interesting to you?”
Lifting a hand, I touch the feathers. “For starters, this mask. It says you’re bold and outgoing.”
“Does it now?”
“It does, and you are,” I whisper.
“I am,” she answers, as if a little mesmerized.
I trace the stones around her neck. “This necklace tells me you love beautiful things, but you also like to be that beautiful thing. To have people look at you.”
She takes a beat, her breath ghosting over her lips, then she whispers, “Yes.”
I return to the starting point—the back of her dress. “And then there’s this corset. I find your choice to wear it fascinating.”
She swallows. “Why?”
“Because you have to know it’s captivating.”
She seems to recover her composure, to remember how to flirt again, because she says, “Do you have a thing for fashion?”
I shake my head, laughing, as I trace the ties along her corset. “These ties—they make me think about what I want to do with them.”
“Tie me up?” she offers in a feathery voice, one that perhaps reveals her own interest in that prospect.
“I would love to tie you up. But I was actually thinking about what I want to do to them with my teeth.”
The expression in her face shifts from heat to rabid curiosity.
Another rough swallow comes from her, then she says, “What do you want to do to them with your teeth?”
I move in closer, my lips near her ear as I whisper, “Untie them one by one, then nip your back, lick your spine, and drag my mouth along that gorgeous neck of yours. Devouring you.”
She sways, nearly falling against my chest. “I would like that,” she says in a whisper. Then she glances around, as if she’s just remembered where she is. “But what about your friend?”
I arch a brow. “How do you know he’s my friend?”
“Because the two of you were staring at me at the same time.”
I can’t contain a grin. She’s onto us, and I fucking love it. “So you think we know each other?”
“I think you do. I think you like doing many things together.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, and I enjoyed dancing with him too,” she says, tightening her hands on my shoulder, her pink lips turning pouty. “And perhaps I don’t want to have to choose between the two of you.”
I finger the strands of her hair, so soft, so silky. “Love, whoever said you had to choose?”
With that, I offer her a hand. She takes it, clasping her fingers against mine. I tip my forehead toward the hallway at the end of the ballroom and guide her away from the dance floor, around the corner, and down a quiet alcove, where I find my longtime friend and business partner.