Page 45 of If the Duke Demands

“Yes,” he murmured against her ear. That single word sent heat cascading through her and spun the confusion inside her until it churned into a tight knot in her belly.

Yet she kept her gaze locked on the singers, not daring to turn her head to look at him. If she did, he would see the unbidden effect he had on her, and she would never be able to live down the embarrassment. Especially when he’d most likely only followed her here to summon her back to the box like a chaperone. “Then you understand why I had to come backstage.”

His lips curled against her ear in a teasing smile. “And abandon poor Downing?”

Oh, that smile! It twined around her spine and made her long to feel those lips against hers. “He seems capable of withstanding my abandonment,” she countered in a breathless whisper.

His hands drifted slowly down her bare arms, fanning goose bumps in their wake. “You don’t enjoy his company?”

“I couldn’t—” Her breath hitched when his hands reached her wrists, and instead of letting her go, they slipped beneath her arms to rest on her hips. Well,thatwas definitely not the touch of a chaperone. Swallowing hard to clear the nervous tightening of her throat, she began again, confessing with a twinge of embarrassment, “I couldn’t have the same kind of conversation with him that I had with you.”

“I certainly hope not.” He slipped one hand around to her front and splayed his fingers wide across her belly. “You’d have had the poor man in a lather.”

She trembled, not knowing what to do or say. Sebastian was holding her in his arms, his hard chest brushing against her back, and his hand…Heavens, his hand! Good Lord, did he realize how scandalously he was holding her? Even if he meant only to keep her still so no one would see her move in the darkness and catch them watching from the wings, where he held her—

Suddenlyverynervous, she gave a soft laugh, one that emerged far more sultry than she’d intended. Blast it! Even her laughs were against her. “Charles Downing? I think not.”

“You don’t like him?” he pressed, his lips brushing tantalizingly against her ear.

She squeezed her eyes closed against the shiver his hot mouth sent racing through her. “He’s nice, but…”

“But he isn’t Robert,” he finished, a strange timbre dulling his voice.

Her heart skipped. That couldn’t be jealousy she heard. Impossible! Certainly not from Sebastian. Still, though, she liked the sound of it, and she knew that now was not the time to admit to suspecting that Robert might never be hers, not if she wanted to hear it again. Which she did.Verymuch.

“No,” she whispered, softly baiting him, “he’s not.”

He shocked her by nuzzling his mouth against her ear, and she gasped. That, oh,thatwas clearly not an accidental brush of whispering lips! He’d meant to caress her, and the warm longing it sent spiraling through her for another touch like that nearly undid her. Drawing a deep breath as she threw all caution and sense to the wind, she tilted her head to give him access to her neck and shoulder, unable to deny the temptation of having his mouth on her.

With a pleased smile against her ear, he took her silent invitation and nibbled at her earlobe. “What is it about my brother,” he murmured, “that draws you so?”

Before she could answer, the tip of his tongue traced the outer curl of her ear, swirled down, and plunged inside. She shuddered at the delicious sensation, and his hand pressed tighter against her belly to keep her still in his arms.

The confusion inside her gave way to a tingling warmth that ached low in her belly. With one little lick, Sebastian had set her blood humming, making her body shiver and her thighs clench the way he had that night in his bedroom when she thought he was Robert. She knew who was kissing her this time, yet knowing he was the wrong Carlisle brother made no difference to the heat rising through her traitorous body. She should step away—this wasSebastian, for heaven’s sake, and the most wrong man in the world for her, save for the king himself—but she simply couldn’t make herself leave the circle of his strong arms.

“Robert is masculine,” she breathed, her words barely audible above the aria swirling around them and fanning the longing inside her to be touched, in all the most wicked places.

“Most men are,” he answered, dancing heated kisses down the side of her neck.

When he placed his mouth against that patch of bare skin where her neck curved into her shoulder, a hot throbbing sprang up between her thighs. She bit her lip to keep back a soft whimper. She shouldn’t like having his hands on her this much, shouldn’t let them wander over her so freely like this…certainly she shouldn’t want to be touched even more intimately. But she did, and she could barely stand still in his arms.

“He’s handsome,” she forced out, hoping he couldn’t hear the nervous trembling that crept into her voice or sense the confusion still simmering inside her.

“Hmm.” His hand on her hip drifted upward along the side of her body, lightly tracing across her ribs. She trembled achingly when his fingers grazed the side swell of her breast, and she instinctively arched her back into his chest. “We’re brothers. We look alike.”

Oh, that wasdefinitelyjealousy! But her kiss-fogged brain couldn’t sort through the confusion he sent swirling inside her to discern why he’d be jealous of Robert. Especially when his teeth nipped gently at her bare shoulder and his hand caressed once more along the side of her breast.

“Not so much alike,” she countered, although she’d always thought Sebastian would be more handsome if he wasn’t always so serious and brooding, with that perpetual frown of disapproval hanging over his brow. If he did more spontaneous and unexpected things…like licking a woman on her nape at an opera.Oh my.She shivered at the audacity of his mouth and at the heat it sent slithering down her spine.

“Very nearly identical,” he mumbled, his mouth returning to her shoulder as his hand roamed up to trace his fingers along the neckline of her gown. Completely unexpected yet wantonly thrilling, the caress sent her heart somersaulting just inches from his fingertips.

“He’s exciting…a risk-taker…” Her voice was a breathless hum despite knowing that in his rivalry with his brother he didn’t want to touch her as much as he wanted to touch her before Robert did. At that moment, though, with his fingertips lightly brushing over the top swells of her breasts, she simply didn’t care. At least not enough to make him stop. “He’s thrilling.”

He slipped his fingers into the valley between her breasts. When his fingertips traced slow circles against the inner curves of her breasts, she was powerless against the soft whimper that fell from her lips.

“Lots of men are thrilling.” He smiled wickedly against her neck at the reaction his seeking fingers elicited from her. “I’m thrilling.”

“You?” She gave a throaty laugh of surprise. “Sebastian, you’re the most reserved, restrained man I—”