"You can't possibly understand me-because you don't know what I want," she retorted.
"From the first moment we caught sight of each other, we've wanted the same thing."
Back off, Lia. Be sensible. End this before it begins. "Since I'm no mind reader," she snapped, "why don't you tell me what that is?"
He wrapped fingers as unyielding as handcuffs around her wrist. Long, lean fingers, she saw, ringless, with well-kept nails and a dusting of blond hair where his shirt ended in a tight cuff. She said evenly, "Let go."
With almost insulting abruptness he dropped her wrist. The music had started again. "We're in the way," he said, draped an arm around Lia's shoulders and drew her off the dance floor.
His cloak had enveloped her in its dark folds; his arm was heavy, its weight as intimate as a caress. She could have protested. Screamed, even. In a room full of people there was no way he could do anything to her without her consent.
Had she ever felt like this in her life? It was as though he'd mesmerized her. Her heart was beating in slow heavy strokes, and the warmth from his arm had spread throughout her limbs. From a long way away, Lia watched him toss his hat on a table. He took her free hand in his and raised it to his lips, caressing her knuckles. Then he turned her hand over and kissed her palm with lingering sensuality.
His hair was thick and silky clean. All she wanted to do was drop her champagne glass on the floor and drag her fingers through those untidy, gold-tipped waves, exploring the tautness of his scalp, cupping her hand to his nape. With a physical effort that felt enormous, Lia gripped the stem of her glass, holding onto it as if it were all that was keeping her sane.
His mouth was still drifting over her palm. Her eyes closed as sensation swept through her in waves of pleasure. Deep inside her, desire sprang to life in a tumultuous, imperative ache; for a few moments that were outside of time Lia gave herself over to it, her body as boneless as a butterfly's. She was spreading her wings to the sun, she thought dizzily. Drawing in its heat, laved by its golden rays. Fully alive, as surely she was meant to be.
Come off it, Lia. Say it like it is. You're allowing yourself to be seduced by a man who lives in the same city as you.
She snatched her hand back, champagne sloshing over her dainty shoes, and said raggedly, "You've got to stop!"
He lifted his head, although he was still clasping her fingers. "You don't want me to stop – -tell the truth."
"I don't know the first thing about you, yet you're-"
"We've skipped the preliminaries, that's all," he said hoarsely. "Gone for the essentials."
With a jolt of her heart she heard that roughness in his voice, and saw how the pulse at the base of his throat was pounding against his skin. "You feel it, too," she whispered.
"I felt it the first moment I saw you across the room."
Hadn't she known that? Wasn't that why she'd run for the dance floor with the nearest available man, and stayed there as long as she could? She said faintly, "A highwayman's a thief, Mr. Talbot."
"A butterfly's sole purpose is to mate."
Her breath hissed between her teeth. "A thief takes what he wants regardless of the consequences."
"If you're willing to be taken, I can scarcely be called a thief."
"Oh, stop it," Lia said peevishly, "you're turning me around in circles."
"Good," he said, and suddenly smiled at her.
It was a smile that crackled with pure male energy. Steeling herself against it, Lia clipped off her words with cold precision. "I'm not looking for a mate. A costume's just that – -a costume. Not a statement about my character."
He looked her up and down, taking his time, his gaze scorching her flesh almost as though she was naked. "Yet you look highly provocative."
Two could play that game, Lia thought in a flare of temper. She glanced downward. His soft leather boots clung to his calves and were cuffed at the knees; his thighs were black-clad, strongly muscled against the taut fabric. Her eyes traveled upward, past his elegant white shirt with its laced neckline over a slash of tanned skin, to the wide shoulders under his cloak. A wave of primitive hunger attacked her, shocking her with its intensity. Had she ever felt this way in her life?
No, she hadn't. Ever. She said with admirable coolness, "Let's face it, you didn't choose to dress up as a clown with ears like jugs and white paint all over your face-like the one I danced with a few minutes ago. Your costume's sexy, too. So what?"
"You're finally admitting you find me sexy – -we're making progress."
"Don't be coy," she said, exasperated. "I've got eyes in my head and any woman worthy of the name would find you sexy."
His voice roughened. "This is all very amusing and it's nowhere near the truth. There's something going on between us that's never happened to me before – -not like this. Not once in my life have I seen a woman across a crowded room and known in my blood and my bones that I had to have her. You've got to trust me on that-I swear it's true."
The crazy thing was that she believed him instantly. "This kind of thing's never happened to me, either," she said shakily.
With a gentleness that disarmed her, he stroked her cheek with one finger. "Thanks – -for being so honest."
Longing simply to rest her forehead against his shoulder and be held by him, Lia said as steadily as she could, "Then let me continue to be honest. I don't make a habit of getting into bed with strangers."
"Neither do I. So why don't we begin with you telling me your name?"
She'd come here to be anonymous; and from some deep instinct, she intended to remain so. Tossing her head, she said, "I can give you a false name. Or no name at all. Your choice."
He took her glass from her hand and thunked it on the table beside his hat. "Why are you being so mysterious?"
"It suits my purposes."
His eyes narrowed. "Are you someone I should know?"
He didn't look the type of man to sit in a concert hall listening to Beethoven; he'd be more at home in a smoky jazz bar. "I doubt it," she said.
"If we go to bed tonight – -and that's what we're talking about – -I have to know who you are."
He was right, she thought in horror, she was considering going to bed with him. Was she clean out of her mind? "If you insist on knowing my name," she said, "then it's no dice."
"Are you in trouble with the law?"
"No!"
"If you're neither famous nor on the lam, you could have given me a false name and I'd never know the difference."
"I dislike lying."
"You like winning."
She laughed, a warm throaty chuckle. "Well, of course. Is there anything wrong with that?"
"I like winning, too."
"Then – -as far as my name's concerned-it'll be good for you to have a new experience. We should all expand our horizons occasionally, Mr. Talbot."
"The name's Seth," he said tersely. "And even though you may disbelieve this, I've had more than enough experience of losing in my life."
Her smile faded; once again she believed him instantly and wholeheartedly. "For that, I'm sorry," she said.
"You are, aren't you?" he said in an odd voice. "You're beginning to intrigue me – -is this about more than lust?"
Again panic flared in her chest. She said obliquely, "If a highwayman even noticed anything as ephemeral as a butterfly, he'd crush it underfoot."
"How about my version? He sees it as something so beautiful that he simply wants to enjoy it."
"But then he has to let it fly away," Lia said, and heard in her own voice something of the steel she'd earlier heard in his.
For a moment he was silent, his eyes trained on her face. Then, with a suddenness that startled her, he ripped his mask off and flung it on the floor. His eyes were deep set, a startlingly deep green, flecked with amber. His cheekbones were imperative, and for the first time she saw the full strength of a face that was both too rugged to be truly handsome, and too strongly carved to be anything but formidable. She swallowed hard and said the first thing that came into her head. "I must be mad to be even contemplating going anywhere near a bed with you … and I'm stone cold sober, so I can't blame it on the champagne."
"It's nothing to do with champagne," he said softly. "Take off your mask."
"No," she said. "If we go to bed together, you have to promise not to touch my mask. You'll never know who I am – -that's the way I want it and that's the way it's going to play. If you don't agree to my conditions, then I'm walking out of here right now, and if you try to stop me I'll scream the place down."