“Yes,” he snapped.
“Then it’s a bargain.” Juliette smiled with relief. “Now, all I have to worry about is how I’m going to find it for you.”
Suddenly Jean Marc began to chuckle.“Merde, for a moment I was taking this nonsense seriously.”
“I am serious. I see nothing to laugh about.”
“It’s impossible.”
“I don’t see why.” Juliette frowned. “Though I admit I’ll have to think about it.”
“I’m sure you will. And, in the meantime, you won’t mind my making plans for sending you immediately to Vasaro?”
“But I’ll need time to—”
“You have no time.” Jean Marc’s smile faded. “I’ll not risk having you in my house a moment longer than necessary. You’ll be on your way to Vasaro before the week is gone.”
“Only a week?”
“Surely that’s enough time. After all, you said it wasn’t an impossible task.” He smiled recklessly and suddenly leaned forward and offered her his wine. “Shall we toast your success?”
She jerked back away from the goblet. “I don’t like wine.”
He was watching her. “Not even to toast such a splendid enterprise? Just a sip?”
“No!” Juliette tried to steady her voice. “You’re making mock of me.”
“No.” He lifted the wine to his own lips. “But I admit to curiosity. I delight in complexity and I find you the most intriguing of puzzles, Juliette.”
“I’m not particularly complex. I’m not even clever with books, like Catherine.” Juliette pushed back her chair and stood up. “You’re the puzzle.”
A smile so wickedly sensual it took her breath lit his lean face. “Then perhaps we should attempt to merge our complexities to form a felicitous whole.”
She stared at him in fascination, a sudden tightness constricting her chest. She was acutely aware of the lithe power of his physique beneath his air of elegant indolence, the grace of his long, tanned fingers toying with the fragile stem of the crystal goblet. “How?”
“In the usual manner. I’m not one who demands a bizarre repertoire of—” He stopped as he noticed her expression. “What did you expect?” he asked softly. “If you didn’t want to solve the puzzle, you should have gone on to Vasaro. You knew what awaited you here with me.” He paused. “Didn’t you?”
Shehadknown, she realized. She had not wanted to acknowledge it, but he was right, she had known. “You want to…fornicate with me.”
“Blunt, but precise.” He leaned back in his chair. “To be even more precise, I wish to fornicate with youfor a long, long time and in ways which you may not even be aware exist.”
Her heart was pounding so hard she could scarcely breathe. “I doubt it. I’m not like Catherine. At court I heard and saw many…” She trailed off and swallowed hard. “Why? I’m not at all pretty.”
“You think not? Then why do I find you desirable?” His voice thickened. “Why do I grow hard when I look at you?”
Her eyes widened, instinctively shifting to his lower body hidden by the damask tablecloth. “Do you?”
He smiled and pushed his chair back. “Come and see.”
Her gaze quickly fell to the plate in front of her. “I think not. I have no wish to fornicate with any man.”
His smile widened as he rose to his feet. “No? Let’s see, shall we?” He was beside her chair in three strides, pulling her to her feet. He sat down in the chair from which he had just evicted her and pulled her down onto his lap. “If you won’t look at me,feelme.”
She stiffened with shock. Even through the multitude of layers of clothing separating them she could feel the bold arousal pressing against her womanhood. And where he touched her she tingled, burned, ached. She should be fighting him, she thought hazily. But Jean Marc wasn’t the Duc de Gramont; he wouldn’t take what she didn’t want to give. “This is foolish.”
“Infinitely.” He unfastened the top of her gown and bared her throat. “And we’ve only just started. I wonder what you’d say to the other foolish positions I’ve been imagining you in of late.” His head lowered and his tongue licked delicately at the pulse rioting in the hollow of her throat.
She inhaled sharply and he looked up and nodded slowly. “You like that? Let me free your breasts and I’ll do other things you’ll like.”
