Well, hell.
His surge of anger disappeared beneath his body’s demands for more.
“Please,” he whispered. “Iambegging.”
“Remember this,” she whispered. “Remember me.”
He wasn’t bloody likely to forget, was he?
She shifted her body. For a wild, frantic moment, he thought she’d leave him like this. Then, she resumed her attention.
His mind became as blessedly blank as the darkness behind his blindfold as he fell into the deep. He’d begged for this.Begged.
No indignation flared. Why? Because he would have suffered any humiliation for her sweet attention?
Yes, he would, he decided. Then, he was lost to an undertow he couldn’t control.
He’d no time to warn her before he shattered, instantly insensible to everything but the powerful spasms of pleasure. Only after the last, vibrating pulse did he realize she hadn’t pulled away.
His breath came deep. His whole body flooded with warmth.
With disbelief.
Who was this strange mix of innocence and confidence? Of saucy impertinence and sensual abandon? What was her game? To humiliate him? To attach him?
Whomever she was, she’d made cannon fodder of his mind.
She resettled against his chest and laid her head on his shoulder with a sigh.
His mind blanked, and he drifted off to sleep with the wordblackbirdon his lips.
Adrian stirred whenthe mattress protested the loss of the Blackbird’s weight. Briefly, he returned to consciousness with the vague thought that a gentleman would rouse himself and help see to his lover’s needs.
A second, hazy thought challenged his first.
Why should he inquire how she was? She’d made her disdain for him plain enough with her final demand.
What they’d done had been a transaction. A distraction. Nothing more.
Besides, she’d absolutely exhausted him. He was never exhausted. And he never begged. And he never wasted this much thought on a mere lover.
He gave into the darkness, the softness of the pillow, and the call of oblivion.
When he finally came back to the world—a matter of a half an hour more at most—he didn’t have to remove his blindfold to know that the room was empty.
Why should he feel a pang of panic?
A transaction. A distraction.
He yanked off his blindfold.
Witch.
He’d agreed to this meeting fully confident he’d succeed, if not in discovering her name, then in searing her mind, convincing her they must meet again. He wasn’t sure he’d accomplished the latter. If he’d roused any sentiment besideslustful scorn, she’d concealed that sentiment behind bold impudence.
And he certainly hadn’t learned her name.
What about her had he uncovered?
