Almost as if, despite being in his arms, her mind was elsewhere. . . .
He set his hand to the delicate planes of her back—and yes, there it was. The telltale quiver of reaction that shivered through her, no matter that she fought to damp it down.
Lips curving in anticipatory delight, he stepped out and swept her into the dance, and reveled in her instant, impossible-to-conceal response. The way her eyes flared as her gaze snapped to his face. The way her luscious lips parted just a fraction, the way her breath hitched.
From that instant on, her attention was his.
He didn’t intend to ever let it go, let it wander.
Capturing her blue eyes, the color of cornflowers under a stormy sky, he whirled her down the floor, focusing on the swoop and sway, the sweeping dance of their senses, feeding the power, ruthlessly heightening the intensity of their effortless, near perfect grace.
If he was an expert on the dance floor, she was a svelte goddess. She matched him—not intentionally but instinctively stepping up to his mark.
Even while, her gaze locked with his, she held fast, denying any and all susceptibility.
Pure challenge.
Him to her, and her to him.
Like an invisible gauntlet, as they swirled around the floor they tossed intent and defiance back and forth between them, relying not on words but on the sheer power of what both of them could say with their eyes, communicate with their gazes.
All any observer would see was a couple absorbed with the dance, locked in each other’s eyes.
No one else could see the tussle—the elemental battle—they waged.
A private war that, he suspected, would very soon advance to a siege.
His inner predator delighted, encouraged and enticed. He hadn’t made any conscious decision; that wasn’t how he operated. He’d long ago learned that, for him, success in life most frequently came through following his instincts.
That was what he was doing now—his instincts had led him to Mary Cynster, and now he was intent on capturing her.
She would be his, and he knew that outcome would be right. The right outcome to lead him forward, to getting what he wanted and needed from his life.
To making his life into what he wanted it to be.
And that was all he needed to know.
That, and that the battle was his to win. No matter her dismissiveness, his innate talents hadn’t failed him. She might not want him now, but she would.
Mary could barely breathe. Her lungs felt tight, constricted, and then Ryder’s lips slowly curved, and the intent in his gaze grew only more heated. More definite, more acute, more pronounced.
She couldn’t pretend she didn’t understand. She didn’t waste time attempting to do so; he, damn him, had seen through her shields, if not from the first, then certainly in the moment when she’d glanced at Randolph and had temporarily forgotten that the far larger danger, in every conceivable way, had been standing directly before her.
That instant when Ryder’s hand, large and so strong, had touched her silk-clad back—
She cut off the thought, the memory; that alone was enough to make her shiver. Again. And she didn’t need to throw the lion whirling her down the floor any further bait.
What she did need to do was to regain control. If she’d learned anything tonight it was that Ryder—for whatever incomprehensible reason—had taken it into his head to hunt her, and he was one of the few within the ton with sufficient wit, talent, and skill to manage her. To inveigle and steer and, most irritating of all to admit, manipulate her—witness this waltz. Just the thought of being managed by anyone made her set her teeth, metaphorically dig in her heels and refuse . . . but she knew very well that, in this case, the course of wisdom was not to fight but to flee.