Page 19 of The Rake Desires the Diamond

Really, he had such nice eyebrows—thick and masculine and well-shaped. The next time he kissed her, she would gently run her finger over them—first one, then the other.

“I am waiting,” Evan said.

He was waiting for her to kiss him and touch his eyebrows?

“What are numbers seven through eleven?” he asked.

“Oh.”

Good heavens. This man messed with her resolve. And her common sense. But not so much that she would divulge seven through eleven. Besides, she was never kissing him again.

“Cat got your tongue?” he asked.

“No!”

In her imagination, Evan Eaton, the rake, had her tongue. In his mouth. Licking it.

“Do you know what I dislike about you?” he asked.

Suddenly, she wanted him to adore everything about her. “What?” she asked, feeling very much like the young girl he’d tormented so many years ago, instead of a darling of theton.

“I loathe that you are so beautiful that you knock the wind from me,” he said in his toe-curling baritone.

She gasped.

“I hate when you stomp your foot. It makes me want to give you the world to make you smile.”

Now, he’d knocked the wind from her. But what if he was toying with her the way he played with all women? However, she really should stop stomping like a petulant child.

She stared into his eyes. They’d clouded over, and his lids dropped oh-so seductively.

“What else do you dislike about me?” she asked softly.

He was so close that his lips brushed her ear. “That your kisses haunt my dreams, leaving me a sleep-deprived fool.”

They were even because the memories of his naked body left her a jumble of wanton inclinations she did not understand. Why in tarnation was she lifting onto her toes, asking, “Anything else?”

He clasped her hips, tugging their bodies together. His firm physique molded to her curves. So precise. So perfect. As if they were one.

His lips cupped her ear. “I loathe that I want to rip your clothes from your body, plant my face between your thighs, and listen to you scream my name as I devour you.”

Good heavens! How indecent! And wanton. And sinful. She shivered.

Evan dropped his hands and backed away, leaving her lonely and aching.

He scraped his fingers through his hair. “I cannot do this. You need to leave. You are courting my friend.”

How mortifying. Her quivering legs struggled to propel her toward the exit. As her hand reached for the door, her faculties kicked in.

“Wait.” She swung to face him. “Evan, you must help me. I have no one else to turn to.”

Apparently, the man had a serious side because concern consumed his countenance. His stride long, he was in front of her in an instant. “Is it Greyson?”

She nodded. “Yesterday at the beach, when he whispered in my ear, he said, ‘If you want me to keep your little indiscretion with Evan Eaton a secret, you will allow me to call upon you’.”

Evan’s nostrils flared. “I knew it.”

“You knew he saw us?” she asked.