“By God,” he murmured, “this isbrilliant.”
The painting that emerged under her fingers was vivid. Carnal. Stunning. It was not lewd—it wastruthful.Red no longer appeared to witness debauchery; she interpreted it, translated it, consumed it and spun it into beauty. There was enchantment in the surrender she captured, in the way Lavinia’s limbs slackened into pleasure, in the sheerhonestyof ecstasy.
He didn’t look back at the chaise again.
He only looked at Red.
And as if shefeltthe weight of his gaze, she lifted her head. Her eyes widened behind the mask, and the rapid flutter at the hollow of her throat betrayed her.
Something wicked and hungry unfurled inside Sebastian.
He stepped closer—too close for propriety, too close for sense—and lifted his hand. His thumb brushed the edge of her lower lip in a slow, deliberate stroke.
“You bite them when you concentrate,” he murmured, voice low enough that only sin could have carried it.
Her breath caught—sharp and unguarded. Her chest rose on a ragged gasp. For a heartbeat she swayed toward him, as if pulled. Then she jerked back as though scalded. Before he could say another word, she lurched to her feet, gathered her skirts with trembling fingers, and fled the room like a frightened rabbit aware that the wolf had finally taken notice.
Darcy pushed openthe heavy door and stepped into the cool night air of the garden terrace, her breath coming far too fast. She pressed trembling fingers to her mouth, trying to erase the ghost of the earl’s touch, but it clung to her, wicked and warm. Lord Raine had barely grazed her lips with his thumb, and yet the sensation pulsed through her, sharp as hunger and soft as longing.
Her face burned. Darcy’s entire body ached with a heat she did not understand, amaddeningache that curled low in her belly and made her thighs press together. She felt desperate and furious. Infuriated that a single look, a single touch from the Earl of Raine could reduce her to this.
Darcy snapped her spine straight. She had painted naked flesh. She had witnessed pleasure and captured it on canvas. And still it was his gaze, the velvet rasp of his voice, the dangerous curve of his mouth that unraveled and provoked something completely unknown inside Darcy.
Get hold of yourself,she scolded silently.
Drawing in a steady breath, she turned, her mask firmly back in place and froze.
He had followed her out, leaned against the wall and had been watching her with an intense yet also unreadable gaze.
“Are you well, Miss Red?”
His tone was laced with provocative humor. Darcy delicately cleared her throat. “Yes. I have enough of Lord Dunmore and his lover to complete the canvas. I am ready for the next room,” she said evenly, though her voice still betrayed a breathlessness she couldn’t quite suppress. “You needn’t accompany me. It’s only a kiss.”
One of his brows quirked. That sinful smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, lazy and lethal. “Very well,” he said. “Good evening, Red.”
He bowed, then turned and walked away without another word.
And just like that, she could breathe again.
Darcy stood frozen for a moment before spinning on her heel and heading inside. She went straight to Madame Rebecca’s private salon, still rattled but determined to anchor herself in her work.
“I’m finished with the lovers,” she said calmly. “Someone may collect the canvas once they are… quite finished.”
Rebecca glanced up from a ledger, smiled slyly, and arched a brow. “Running off to capture sweet innocence now, are you?”
Darcy managed a tight smile. “Yes. Door five, was it?”
Rebecca waved a hand in confirmation, and Darcy left, determined to shake off the aftershocks that still tingled in her blood. She reached the fifth door on the left, just as promised. The room had been quietly prepared. Her easel and brushes waited. In front of her stood a lovely courtesan in a delicate blue gown, her blonde hair falling in soft waves down her back. The man beside her wore a black mask speckled with gold, like a night sky. From the few patrons Darcy had observed, most of the men made no effort to conceal their identities, while many of the women remained masked. It was interesting that this gentleman had chosen to hide his face. Darcy sat and observed, waiting for the spark that would push her to capture the scene.
The man touched the courtesan’s cheek with reverent fingers, his gaze tender as he leaned in. Their mouths met in a soft kiss. It was sweet. Gentle. A series of light, testing presses.
Darcy waited for something more. But it never came. The kiss lingered, paused, then resumed in another soft sweep. Darcy frowned, puzzled by the absence of something shecouldn’t quite name. There was affection, certainly. A quiet tenderness. But no heat. No urgency. No spark of surrender or claim. She went still. That expectation—of something more—had rooted itself in her since the earl’s provocative explanation of a woman’s pleasure. Darcy had imagined desire would first bloom in a kiss, that it would ignite with a glance, a sigh, a press of mouths that promised more. But here, she saw none of it. Only politeness disguised as intimacy. Perhaps she was wrong. Or perhaps a kiss did not kindle hunger.
Darcy’s brush moved with steady purpose, yet her fingers lacked the fever that had seized her in the previous room. She frowned, acknowledging that the heat had not been born of the couple upon the chaise, but of the earl’s words and the weight of his stare. After nearly thirty minutes, she set her brush down and nodded. “Thank you. That will do.”
The couple parted with grace and quiet smiles, and Darcy gathered her canvas and carried it to the private room Rebecca had set aside for her. The first painting was there, waiting for her to add the finishing touches. She leaned this new one against the wall and stood back.
The first—Lady Lavinia, writhing beneath Dunmore’s mouth, the expression on her face caught in a brutal ecstasy—was alive with color and tension. It pulsed. It breathed.
