“He was a damn fool. A mere rumor would not dissuade me from your charms.”
Pleasure suffused her at Mikhail’s assertions. “Thank you for your kind words.”
“I did not offer them out of kindness.”
Her breath hitched at the shadows of hunger in his eyes, and she swallowed at the startling throb in her lower stomach. Not good. While she liked him, her family would object. But did she care? She liked him. “I have never had anyone look at me as you do,” she said softly. “Your gaze is like a physical touch; its intensity is almost alarming.”
A fleeting smile touched his lips. “I will learn to temper my attraction.”
“I would urge you not to.” Her voice was a mere whisper, but from the flash of desire that darkened his eyes, he had heard. He leaned in, and for a heart-stopping moment she thought he would kiss her. Please. She wanted the press of his mouth against hers.
“Your lips have been haunting me.”
“I am sorry to have caused you misery,” she said teasingly, trying to rein in the ridiculous need to behave wantonly.
He placed his hands on her hips, drawing her closer to his delicious warmth. “More like tormenting me.”
“Then I am sorry if I have caused you pain,” she whispered as she lifted her arms and clasped his shoulder. Acting on pure feminine instinct, she pressed her nose in to his neck, breathing in his evocative scent.
He froze, and a chill blasted her. A fraught silence settled around them, the undercurrents of something unknown rippling across Payton’s skin. The chill seemed to gather in strength, and she could feel him retreating, though he did not move. It scared her.
Instinctively she dropped her hands from his shoulders. Tension visibly drained from his body when she stepped away, and hurt lanced through her. “You find my touch repellent?” The idea seemed farfetched, but it was the alarming conclusion she had drawn.
Caution clouded his gaze. “No…never.”
Soft relief pulsed, and she smiled. “For a moment I—”
“I find all touch uncomfortable,” he admitted with evident discomfort.
But he seems so self-assured and arrogant…
“Oh!” She made to move away, but he gripped her hips and drew her to him. “I thought you found touching distasteful.”
“If I am the one in control it does not bother me,” he said in a deceptively mild tone, drawing her even closer, flushing her chest to his.
Oh.
“I have an incurable love for horses and dogs. I enjoy archery and boxing.”
She lifted her eyes to his, and the heat in his gaze strangled her breathing. “I…I feel as if you are about to kiss me, so for you to talk of dogs, horses, and pugilistic skills in this moment is decidedly confusing.”
His fingers tangled in her hair, and he lifted her face even closer. “You’d asked about my hobbies. What about yours?”
The anticipation of feeling his lips and tasting them for the first time was burning away all her resistance to mere ashes, and he wanted to converse?
He pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth, darting his tongue to caress the closed seam of her lips. Payton’s knees weakened.
“I am a terrible painter,” she said huskily. “But I love to see images I create come to life on a canvas. You already know I enjoy writing fairy tales and drawing the images that roar to life in my mind to accompany my stories.”
“I look forward to reading them.”
Her breath hitched as nerves fluttered inside her. He pressed kisses to her lips. Payton sighed, loving the firm pressure on her mouth.
“You taste very sweet,” he murmured.
“It is the halva.”
He trailed his lips to the corner of her mouth and licked his tongue in a wicked and sensual glide of shocking temptation across the seam of her closed lips. “No…it is you.” He bit her lower lip and tugged, sliding his tongue inside.
She jerked in shock.
“It is definitely you,” he said, his voice low and gravelly. “You are testing my control, and I ache to taste you deeper.”
She had no sensible response as confusing heat suffused her entire body.
He bent to nibble at her throat, the teasing strokes of his tongue rousing sensations she had never felt before. Everything inside of Payton ached. Her breasts and her most intimate valley throbbed, and she desperately wanted his touch, his taste, anything to relieve the sweet unknown pressure building.
“Then savor me,” she invited with a purr as he nipped the sensitive hollow of her throat.
He trailed fleeting kisses up to her lips, then teased her mouth in a seductive caress as she opened farther for him, inviting him inside.
“I can taste your innocence,” he growled softly.