LITMIR.BIZ

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      With five minutes to think it through, she’d have pushed him away. Her disguise depended on it. But she had one second, and so her reasoning took on an entirely different cast. The heat of his breath against her lip. The spark that shot through her when his hand, ungloved and still wet from the rain, grazed her cheek.

      Mostly, though, something vitally feminine deep inside her chest insisted she stay, a bud yearning to unfold after years of lies and denial. Madame Esmerelda wouldn’t have cared. But the pretense of Madame Esmerelda had eroded every bit of real human contact from Jenny’s life for years. Jenny was tired of not caring.

      Jenny stayed.

      She did more than stay. She stepped into Lord Blakely’s rough embrace and lifted on tiptoes. He didn’t evince the least surprise at her brazenness. Instead, his hands settled on her hips and he pulled her up into his kiss.

      For all the carefully controlled power in the strong arms holding her, his mouth descended on hers with surprising gentleness. His lips brushed hers, sweet and lingering. A soft, sensual nip, and then another. Beguiling. As if there were nothing he’d rather do than sample her breath, taste her lips.

      He was slow but not hesitant. He coaxed her to give up her every secret, and Jenny was beyond artifice. Every sensation—the sweep of his tongue against her bottom lip, the light brush of her nipples against his chest, the clamp of his hands around her waist—reverberated through her aching body.

      She opened her mouth. He entered, as confident as an advancing army. His tongue captured hers, and everything warm and womanly in Jenny welled up in response.

      Without breaking the kiss, he pushed forward inside her rooms. Three steps, and her back met the rough surface of her entry wall, his lips and tongue teasing her. His hands tightened, each finger branding her hips through her dressinggown.

      Jenny wanted everything she had denied herself these last long years. She wanted every last scrap of femininity she had hidden behind the voluminous yards of her garish Gypsy costume. She wanted to touch him, experience flesh pressed against flesh. If only for this moment, she wanted to believe herself safe and secure. It was idiotic beyond all comprehension for her to indulge that fantasy with any person, let alone this man.

      But she did.

      Lord Blakely pulled away. He swiveled briefly, casually flicking her door shut with one hand. The sharp click of its closing awoke Jenny from her dream.

      The marquess turned back to her.

      One tentative glance at his face and Jenny understood exactly how foolish she’d allowed herself to be.

      The set of his lips was no longer grim, but it was still devoid of warmth. He considered her, his eyes alert and observant, darting from her mouth to the hand she held up to halt his advance. For all the passion she’d imagined in his kiss, the look he gave her was considering. Intellectual. And he wasn’t even breathing hard.

      Jenny smiled tentatively at him, her heart slamming painfully against her chest.

      His expression didn’t lighten one iota.

      She swallowed and looked at the floor. She’d just told him everything, and she hadn’t even spoken a word. Life was brutally unfair, sometimes. But she’d had years to become accustomed.

      “I think you’ve proven your point.” She could taste her own bitter shame in every word. It had taken him seconds to breach her defenses. Moments to prove he could command her female response. Mere hours to expose her lies.

      For a heartbeat, he didn’t react.

      Then he reached out an arm. “Not in the slightest. Give me your hand.”

      The nonchalance in his demand stiffened her spine. She took another step back. “You’ve touched me enough for one evening, I should think.”

      His gaze skittered down her robe. Her nipples were already peaked. He could not miss those tips poking against the fabric. Nor could he fail to note the pale rose heat that suffused her face and hands.

      He shook his head slowly. “I suppose you should think so. But you don’t. You’re as ravenous for me as I am for you.”

      A gasp escaped Jenny’s unwilling lungs. “I—I’m not—”

      “Don’t bother lying to me.” His voice was dark and deep, scraping like gravel against her senses. “You’ve already told me what I need to know. You’re no fortune-teller.”

      Lord Blakely lounged with his back against the door. She glanced down—but the damnable loose cut of his trousers gave no hint as to his physical state, and he exhibited frightening composure for a supposedly ravenous man. Jenny was the one who ached all over. And he was right. She wanted his touch again; she hungered for it.

      He crooked one finger. “Now come. Give me your hand. I promise I shan’t bite.”

      She swallowed. “Really? Then why ever do you want it?”

      A flicker of appreciation flared in his eyes. “I am going to read your palm.”

      Confusion sparked in Jenny’s mind. “But you don’t believe in fortune-telling.”

      He pushed off from the door and wandered from the tiny entryway into her front room. He paused before her table and lifted the cheap black cotton off the wood with his thumb and forefinger.

      “I don’t believe in this.”

      He dropped the material to the floor. It landed in a whispering sigh.

      He turned to the brass tray where she burned her incense. She’d cleaned it of ash and filled it with fresh sandalwood shavings in preparation for the next client. He picked up a handful of fat curls. “I don’t believe in these, either.”

      He clenched his fist, and short stubs of sandalwood rained down on the black cloth.

      Lord Blakely turned to face her. His features were still hard and unmoving and his gaze roved around the room, avoiding her. “Let me tell you what I do believe. I believe in intelligence. I believe in clever tricks. And I believe you have no shortage of the two.”

      Two steps forward, and he was once again within touching distance. He held out his hand once again. “Give me your hand, and I’ll show you how your trick is performed.”

      Jenny shook her head.

      He gave her no chance to move away. Instead, his fingers clamped about her wrist and he drew her toward him. Jenny’s skin prickled with the heat wafting off him. But he didn’t take advantage of her proximity. Instead, he flipped her hand palm up and examined it with logical detachment.

      “There is no real difference between your palmistry and mine. Except I eschew cosmic references. I’ll explain where I get my oranges and elephants, scientifically speaking.” The pads of his fingers traced a molten line down her palm. “The first thing I see in your hand is that you have been well-educated, almost certainly at one of the small schools that trains gentlewomen in the outlying areas of the country.”

      Jenny inhaled. “I—What makes you say—”

      He ticked items off on each of her fingers. “You are familiar with bugs pinned to cards. You know the precise degree of deference owed a marquess. When you become angry, you use words like desiccate and ossify. You sit as if you were trained with a book on your head. You speak like a young lady drilled in her aitches, which you enunciate quite precisely.” He paused, tapping his thumb against her smallest finger. “I am out of fingers, and not yet out of observations.”

      Jenny pulled against his grip. He didn’t loosen his hold.

      Instead, he trailed his fingers along her palm. Years of doing her own cleaning had left her hands rough. She had no doubt that frightening brain of his was calculating the precise amount of laundering she had performed.

      “I doubt there was much money in your family—perhaps it was charity that paid for the education?”

      Jenny

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