Page 31 of Brazen

Magnus couldn’t tear his eyes from her. He liked her.

A waiter passed and Magnus caught the longing look she sent the man’s way. Magnus signaled the waiter. He turned toward them and stopped.

“Champagne, my lady?”

“Oh, yes, please.”

Magnus took a glass and handed it to Mia, then took one for himself. Instead of sipping, as he’d expected, she took a large drink, then released a breath.

“Thirsty?” he asked.

She nodded. “I am. Plus, I do like champagne.”

“I don’t see your brother,” he said.

She snorted. “He will avoid me this weekend, if he is wise.”

“I take it he has appointed himself your keeper.”

“Aye, and he isn’t very good at it.”

“He is right to watch out for you, you know.”

She looked up at him, a speculative gleam in her eyes. “Protect me from you, you mean?”

Oh yes, his mind shouted, but he said, “All he knows is that I am a man who carried you into his house and rode alone with you on a horse. For all he knows, I have already had my way with you.”

She choked on her champagne and snapped her head up. “I-I beg your pardon, that is ridiculous.”

“Hardly. The thought hasn’t occurred to you?” he murmured.

She gasped softly, and desire streaked through him. He wanted to hear that sound while he moved inside her.

Her eyes narrowed. “You are toying with me.”

“Indeed, I am, my lady.” Do you like it?

When she finished her champagne in three swallows, he concluded she did like it and wondered just what the bloody hell he would do about it.

The dance ended, and he took her glass and set it beside his glass on a nearby table, then led her to the dance floor. As they fell in line, his gaze caught on Gordon Young, standing with a stalky dark-haired man he didn’t recognize. Young said something to the man next to him and the man looked at Magnus.

Magnus would have to speak to Stirling about Young.

The music began and he turned his gaze onto Mia. She surprised him by not looking away. The ladies danced forward, then curtsied. She leaned forward in her curtsy, offering a lovely view of the rise of her breasts—and a little more. Hmm, did she realize the tantalizing picture she made?

Mia rose, then twirled. Her dress flared and Magnus glimpsed slim ankles before she danced back to her place in line with the other women. The ride home on his horse tonight might prove as uncomfortable as had the ride with her in his lap. Well, perhaps not quite as uncomfortable—and certainly not as pleasurable as when her warm body pressed his cock.

He and Mia danced toward one another. He grasped her hand. The pressure of her fingers against his as they stepped in time with the music between the two nearest men made him wonder how her fingers would feel about his hard length.

They separated and she grasped the hand of the woman to her left, then executed a turn. The women joined hands with the two other women in their set and Magnus grasped Mia’s free hand as they formed a circle. They completed one turn, then dropped hands and faced the opposite direction of each other. The woman facing Magnus looked at him through her lashes. They circled each other.

From the corner of his eye, Magnus watched Mia. She looked up at her partner with a frank expression that suggested nothing more than polite civility. He slid to the right of his partner. She gave him a final suggestive smile in the instant before he faced Mia again. They joined hands and stepped in a circle, eyes locked. They faced one another and stepped close. Magnus couldn’t stop himself from stepping closer than he should. He stared down at her, his heart suddenly beating fast as if he were a sixteen year old boy falling in love for the first time.

He started at the thought. That word hadn’t entered his thoughts, much less passed his lips in eight years. He’d cared for Leanne, and had expected their bond to grow, but he’d left love behind all those years ago as a young man before he’d left for the sea.

Mia titled her head back and looked up at him. It seemed they were frozen in that instant, the music a far-away melody. Mia grasped her skirt and bent slightly forward in a quick curtsey. He caught another tantalizing view of the creamy valley between her breasts. His cock jerked.

She rose and skipped in a circle around him. They backed up, circled the partner to the left, then approached one another again. They clasped hands and stepped so close he could smell her lilac perfume.