Page 9
“Oui.”
What? A man couldn’t have a hard on for a beautiful woman now? Why will the damn thing not behave? He’d never let his desires get the best of him. Being in control, bringing women undone, doling out or denying pleasure as he saw fit, punishing them in the most exquisite way until they acknowledged his command, then giving them everything they needed was his thing. Pierre had nothing on Alain when he was in the zone. When he had a woman bound and begging. Yet here he was, coming apart at the seams because she was in his apartment.
Pierre and Louis laughed. He pressed his fist against his mouth, repressing a growl. Feeling a little untethered, and like the butt of some private joke, was fucking annoying.
The elevator came to a stop, and the doors whooshed open.
“She’s all yours, Alain. Have fun.”
He ended the call, Louis’ amusement following him as he stepped into his foyer. The ward shimmered, the pulse of power as it should be. He’d been right. It remained unbroken. It was as if his ward had simply let her in. And the only part of him that had registered it was his cock.
Alain picked up an empty vial discarded by the door and sniffed. Angelica root, black pepper and white oak bark. Protection herbs. Not enough to have kept her safe had she broken his ward.
He entered his apartment, set the vial aside on the entry table, closed the door behind him with a soft click and followed her scent trail through the living area—the cushions too artfully rearranged, the book he’d been reading on the coffee table, not on the chaise where he’d tossed it—and into the kitchen.
His heart almost stopped beating. There she was, leaning on his kitchen counter, a generous amount of cleavage on display, an open bottle of Domaine de la Romanèe-Conti and two glasses of wine beside her. Her cheeks darkened with a pretty flush, and didn’t he just want to add to that? Want to push her to heights she’d never thought possible?
“Care to join me?”
She straightened, picked up a glass and took a sip, then licked her lips in a deliberate provocation as old as time. Yet there was an uncertainty in her eyes, in the catch of her breath in her throat. He muffled a groan. That mix of sultry allure and tentativeness…
If Viagra could bottle it, they’d make a fucking fortune. From him alone.
Chapter Six
Holding the wineglass tight so she wouldn’t drop it, Grace eyed the man leaning against the door frame with his arms and ankles crossed. Alain d’Louncrais. He shouldn’t fit in this apartment full of old-world elegance, with its arched fireplace and intricate moldings. The gilded mirror, the French doors and their floor-to-ceiling drapes. The bespoke Hampton style kitchen with its gleaming copper pots. But he did. Like some sort of aristocratic lord in a Tom Ford suit.
Grace had been standing by his bed—a huge king, with the ornate turned bedposts and studded velvet headboard—surrounded by the subtle scent of male aftershave, staring at her reflection in the enormous mirror behind it when Dubois had called. She’d been so close. The hidden compartment right there, a shimmering ward at her fingertips. But though she’d not broken the ward on the front door, d’Louncrais had known she was in his apartment. Of course he had.
Grace picked up the second glass and eased her way around the kitchen counter toward him. If she thought she could pull it off in these ridiculous heels, she would’ve attempted a sexy glide across the parquetry floor, but she was more likely to fall flat on her face. In her fancy dress, Grace might look the part, but playing the role of sexy temptress wasn’t something she’d ever done before.
The half-empty vial of sedative herbs sat uncomfortably against her skin, tucked into the corset of her dress. Perhaps she should have used the whole vial. He was a big man. Over six feet of hard-packed muscle, if the stretch of his jacket across his broad shoulders was anything to go by. She needed him down for the count.
She held out a glass, praying he wouldn’t notice the microscopic floaties that refused to settle to the bottom. Alain accepted it, and it took everything she had not to snatch her hand away as his fingers brushed hers. Not to shake her hand, fling off the tingles that raced up her arm. She took a sip from her own glass to disguise how his presence unnerved her. And to encourage him to drink from his. The strong flavor tickled her nose and caught in her throat on the way down.
Don’t cough, don’t cough. You’re sophisticated and daring and you drink wine all the time. She didn’t. She never drank. But he would be suspicious if she didn’t drink it.
He eyed the bottle on the counter. “You have expensive taste, ma chérie.”
Of course it was expensive. Everything about him, this apartment, his suit, his enticing aftershave was expensive, but for him to mention it… Guilt and shame washed over her, and every emotion in between, but she couldn’t back out now. She had to respond in kind. With something cute, seductive, or brave, like a challenge. Something Irena King would say.
She bit her lip and dipped her chin, catching his gaze. “You’re to my taste.”
Heavens to Betsy. Had that sounded as corny to him as it had to her?
D’Louncrais chuckled and rounded the kitchen counter. “Am I, now?”
He was barely two feet from her, and the force of his presence, the sheer animal magnetism of him, had her mind stuttering for purchase on words, on thoughts. Made her forget why she was there.
Jiminy, he smells so good.
“An interesting wine, this one. Intense, yet ethereal and a little mysterious.” He swirled the wine in his glass, raised it to his nose, inhaled, then took a generous sip. “Like you. Beautiful. Bold and yet”—he hooked a finger under her chin, forcing her to look at him—“there’s something so…”
Deceitful? Duplicitous? Dishonest? She waited for him to call her out.
“…fresh and innocent about you. Every thought and every emotion flashes across your pretty face for the world to see.”
Fudge nuggets. Did he know? That she was a fraud in a fancy dress. That she was after more than a night in his bed. That she wasn’t after that at all. Though how her heart was racing, the way she’d gone all weak at the knees, suggested she was lying to him and to herself.
