Page 23 of The Earl’s Forbidden Temptation

Rebecca referred to all her courtesans as “Lady,” a title she wielded like a dagger dipped in honey, half flattery and half mockery. Lavinia was striking, her figure slender but sensuous beneath a sheer silk peignoir that clung like mist to her skin. Waves of black hair tumbled over her shoulder, framing a face painted for pleasure. She did not spare Red or Sebastian a glance; all her sultry attention was fixed upon her client as she glided to his side.

Red looked over at Sebastian then, her expression caught between apprehension and determination. He offered a small, amused smile.

“They are your subjects,” Sebastian said, his voice deliberately low. He kept his gaze on her, not the couple entwined on the chaise. “Watch them and paint, Red. Rebecca is particularly eager for you to capture the precise moment pleasure overcomes Lavinia.”

She stiffened, color rushing up her neck. “How shall I know when pleasure has overcome her?”

A flicker of surprise, brief but sharp, cut through Sebastian. The question was so honest, so untouched, that something unexpected tightened inside his chest.

“You will know,” he murmured. “Pleasure announces itself, however valiantly one tries to remain silent. It will be a sound of delight.”

Red cast him a quick, startled glance, the reaction unmistakable even beneath her mask. “Delight?”

“Yes.” Sebastian smiled. “You will hear it when her breathing turns ragged and desperate, in the broken moan shaped not by language but by need. Watch her body. It will tremble, her hips will lift, and her hands will grasp for anything that might anchor her. Her lips will part, her lashes will flutter, and her skin will flush as though kissed by flame.”

He tilted his head, watching Red’s throat work around a swallow. “It’s not subtle. When it comes, it’s a storm, Red.”

Red swallowed hard, her hand tightening around the brush before she set it down again with care. What little of her throat and jaw he could see above the collar of her gown had flushed a deep pink, ripe as summer apples. She could not hide the quick rise and fall of her chest or the way her legs shifted beneath her skirts as if trying to dispel heat.

Sebastian did not look away. Lavinia and Dunmore had vanished from his thoughts; there was only Red and the fierce desire to be the storm that broke her apart.

It was madness, he thought with some measure of humor, to be so powerfully drawn to a woman whose name and face he did not know.

Nonsensical madness.

Sebastian took a slow sip of his brandy, amused and intrigued. She was already blushing furiously, and the performance had scarcely begun. He did not watch Dunmore and his lover, though he typically savored the art of voyeurism, pleasure observed rather than taken, yet deeply felt. There was something in witnessing desire unfolding that allowed him to indulge without surrendering. But tonight, his attention was fixed elsewhere.

Sebastian watched Red. She sat with her spine straight, chin tilted in concentration, lips slightly parted. The flicker of candlelight played across the curve of her cheek and the slope of her neck, gilding her in warm hues. He found himself wondering, not for the first time, who she truly was. What had brought her here? What story lay behind the mask, and what desperation had driven her to paint scenes so clearly at war with her sensibilities?

Red gasped suddenly, her hand lifting to her throat in a startled, almost helpless gesture. Sebastian lifted a brow and shifted his gaze to the chaise. Lavinia sprawled against the chaise, her legs thrown over Dunmore’s shoulders as he licked her pussy with obscene greed. The wet sounds of his tongue and fingers working her slit mingled with the low rhythm of Lavinia’s panting breaths. Lavinia gripped the arm of the chaise, knuckles white, her body arching helplessly into the relentless lash of his mouth.

Red gasped again, and this time her hand shot for the brush.

“Do not stop, Lord Dunmore,” she said, her voice suddenly sharp and clear. “Hold her there. I must capture that expression.”

Lavinia moaned, a sound pitched between pleasure and torment, and Sebastian watched as her limbs trembled. Her mouth fell open, eyes wild and unfocused. That moan deepened into a cry as her body jerked, thighs clenching around Dunmore’s head. Dunmore did not relent, and Red continued to paint in quick, precise strokes that brought her subject to vivid, aching life.

Minutes passed, perhaps more than Sebastian realized, for time bent strangely around Red when she painted, folding in on itself as if caught in the grip of her focus. Her initial shock had clearly faded, burned away by something stronger: her passion for art. Lavinia climaxed once, then again, and finally a third time, her cries sharp and frantic as she twisted against Dunmore’s mouth. Sweat glistened along her skin, and her hair clung in damp strands to her temples. Red’s brush flew, recording every grimace of rapture, every note of surrender carved into the courtesan’s face.

Her eyes flicked between subject and canvas with single-minded devotion, her lips moving faintly as if reciting some silent rhythm between light and shadow, motion and stillness. Her hand trembled once, then steadied. Only the image on the canvas lived. Sebastian approached her, drawn by the need to see the work she painted. She did not notice his approach. He glanced down, and for a heartbeat, he forgot to breathe.

“Good God,” he murmured. “This is extraordinary.”

The painting emerging beneath her fingers was vivid, carnal, and stunning. It was not lewd; it was truthful. Red no longer appeared to witness debauchery; she interpreted and translated it, transforming flesh and surrender into beauty. There was enchantment in the surrender she captured, in the way Lavinia’s limbs slackened into pleasure, in the sheer honesty of ecstasy.

Sebastian did not look back at the chaise.

His attention belonged entirely to Red.

As though she felt the weight of his gaze, she lifted her head. Her eyes widened behind the mask, and the rapid flutter at the hollow of her throat betrayed her.

Something wicked and hungry unfurled inside Sebastian. He stepped closer, too close for propriety and too close for sense, then lifted his hand. His fingers paused an inch from her face, giving her time to retreat. When she remained still, his thumb brushed the edge of her lower lip in a slow, deliberate stroke.

“You bite them when you concentrate,” he murmured.

Red’s breath caught, sharp and unguarded. Her chest rose on a ragged gasp. For a heartbeat she swayed toward him, as if pulled. Only then did she jerk back as though scalded. Before he could say another word, she lurched to her feet, gathered her skirts with trembling fingers, and fled the room like a frightened rabbit who had only just realized the wolf’s attention was fixed entirely upon her.

Darcy pushed open the heavy door and stepped into the cool night air of the garden terrace, her breath coming in quick, uneven pulls. She pressed trembling fingers to her mouth, trying to erase the ghost of the earl’s touch, but it clung to her, wicked and warm. Lord Raine had barely grazed her lips with his thumb, and yet the sensation pulsed through her, sharp with hunger and achingly tender.