Page 24 of The Earl’s Forbidden Temptation

Her face burned. Darcy’s entire body ached with a heat she did not understand, a maddening ache that curled low in her belly and made her thighs press together. Desperation and fury tangled inside her, for a single look and one fleeting touch from the Earl of Raine had reduced her to this trembling confusion.

Darcy snapped her spine straight. She had painted naked flesh. She had witnessed pleasure and captured it on canvas. Yet it was his gaze, the dark, alluring rasp of his voice, and the dangerous curve of his mouth that unraveled her and awakened something wholly unknown inside her.

Get hold of yourself, she scolded silently.

Drawing a steady breath, she turned with her composure firmly restored, then froze.

He had followed her outside and now leaned against the wall, watching her with an intensity she could not read.

“Are you well, Red?”

His tone was laced with provocative humor. Darcy delicately cleared her throat. “Yes. I have enough of Lord Dunmore and his lover to complete the canvas. I am ready for the next room,” she said evenly, though her voice still betrayed a breathlessness she could not quite suppress. “You need not accompany me. The next scene is only a kiss.”

One of his brows lifted. That sinful smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, lazy and lethal. “Only a kiss?” His smile deepened. “Then you are surely in no danger at all. Good evening, Red.”

He bowed, then turned and walked away without another word.

Only when he disappeared inside could she breathe freely again.

Darcy stood frozen for a moment before spinning on her heel. She went straight to Madam Rebecca’s private salon, still rattled but determined to anchor herself in her work.

“I have finished with the lovers,” she said calmly. “Someone may collect the canvas once they are… quite finished.”

Rebecca glanced up from a ledger, smiled slyly, and arched a brow. “Running off to capture sweet innocence now, are you?”

Darcy managed a tight smile. “Yes. Door five, was it?”

Rebecca waved a hand in confirmation, and Darcy left, determined to shake off the aftershocks that still tingled in her blood. She reached the fifth door on the left, just as promised. The room had been quietly prepared, her easel and brushes waiting near the best source of light. In front of her stood a lovely courtesan in a delicate blue gown, her blonde hair falling in soft waves down her back. The man beside her wore a black mask speckled with gold. From the few patrons Darcy had observed, most of the men made no effort to conceal their identities, while many of the women remained masked.

His decision to conceal his face intrigued her. Darcy sat and observed, waiting for the spark that would compel her to capture the scene.

The man touched the courtesan’s cheek with reverent fingers, his gaze tender as he leaned in. Their mouths met in a soft kiss. The kiss was sweet and gentle, a series of light, testing presses.

Darcy waited for something more, but it never came. The kiss lingered, paused, then resumed in another soft sweep. Darcy frowned, puzzled by the absence of something she couldn’t quite name. There was affection and quiet tenderness, certainly, but no heat, urgency, or spark of surrender and claim. She went still. That expectation of something more had rooted itself in her since the earl’s provocative explanation of a woman’s pleasure. Darcy had imagined desire would first bloom in a kiss, that it would ignite with a glance, a sigh, a press of mouths that promised more. Here, however, she saw none of it. Only politeness disguised as intimacy. Perhaps she was wrong. Or perhaps a kiss did not kindle hunger.

Darcy’s brush moved with steady purpose, yet her fingers lacked the fever that had seized her in the previous room. She frowned, acknowledging that the heat had not been born of the couple upon the chaise, but of the earl’s words and the weight of his stare. After nearly thirty minutes, she set down her brush and nodded to the couple. “Thank you. That will be sufficient.”

The couple parted with grace and quiet smiles, and Darcy gathered her canvas and carried it to the private room Rebecca had set aside for her. The first painting was there, waiting for her to add the finishing touches. She leaned this new one against the wall and stood back.

The first painting, Lady Lavinia writhing beneath Dunmore’s mouth with brutal ecstasy caught upon her face, was alive with color and tension; it seemed to pulse and breathe.

The second painting was beautiful, yet unnervingly quiet.

Darcy stared at it, a small frown curving her brow. Something was missing, some spark of life or human edge that would make the viewer feel the ache of longing or the unbearable sweetness of surrender. Darcy knew the moment she realized it: the scene did not lack skill; it lacked desire.

She folded her arms across her chest and stared at both canvases, unease prickling beneath her skin.

A knock sounded. Before she could respond, the door swung open, and Madam Rebecca swept in, perfume preceding her in a decadent wave. She clapped her hands together, her eyes lighting with delight. “Simply ravishing! Red, these are stunning.”

Darcy frowned, reluctant to give voice to her doubts. After studying the canvases beside Rebecca for several moments, she released a quiet breath and said, “Do you not feel as though something is… amiss?”

Rebecca blinked, clearly taken aback. She moved closer, examining both canvases. “These are marvelous. The color and tension are extraordinary. You have captured something raw in this one.”

Her voice trailed as her gaze shifted to the second painting. “Oh,” she murmured, stepping even closer. “This kiss lacks something.”

Darcy sighed. “It does, though I cannot determine what has eluded me.”

“Passion,” Rebecca said softly.