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Skylar willed herself to stand. Return to Rex. Resume the hunt. Look for another handsome gold-masked man, one without a horde of women vying for his attention. But her legs felt frozen, her body locked in position.
And then—
The man captured her gaze once again, then placed his whisky glass down and slowly stood. “Excuse me, ladies,” he told his surrounding harem, his voice low, deep, and throaty, sounding like velvet, steel, and sin. Although the women keened and reached for him, he held Skylar’s gaze in his as he walked straight up to her, a cocky smile on his face.
3
I’m not nervous.
This time, oddly, the affirmation was a statement of truth.
All Skylar felt was lust. Want. Need.
He leaned into her space until he was speaking near her ear. “Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon.”
With a warm rush, goosebumps slid up her spine. She blinked at his words and at his soft breath against her neck. “You know your Emily Dickinson,” she said. “Not a poet I’d imagine many men study. But you could be wrong, you know. Who says this is my first time?”
“I know it is because of your wide, round eyes. The way your heartbeat flutters in your elegant neck. How you bit your lower lip when you looked at me.”
“I did?” She hadn’t realized she’d done such a thing.
“You did.” He pulled back, and she craved his heat to return. “They say it’s rude to stare,” he said, a hint of mischief in his eyes.
Skyler’s body hummed with sensation. Intrigue. Arousal. Approval. Nothing like the fear and nervousness she’d felt earlier. She let her gaze slip up and down his form, taking him in before tipping up a shoulder. “I think you liked it.”
He grinned. “Of course I did. But did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Did you like staring at me, princess?” The man circled behind her and leaned in to whisper, “Did you like watching?”
His breath, cool like mint against her skin, made Skylar shiver. She prayed that in the dim blue and red-infused light, he couldn’t see the goosebumps that suddenly raised along her arms. Yes, she had liked staring at him. But there was something too intense, too real about this man, she realized. She didn’t want to go through with tonight’s plan with someone she felt so viscerally attracted to. She simply wanted a man—or hell, maybe even a woman—who was attractive enough to trigger her body’s response and kind enough to not frighten her.
This man, though . . .
This man represented all she’d seen in Rex that had since disappeared—all the good parts minus the insecurities—but so much more. This man represented all she’d ever longed for. Dreamed about. Masturbated to in her fantasies.
She stood, her breasts pressing against his chest as she held her chin high. “Yes, I liked watching,” she said, her tone a challenge. She could feel him holding his breath before she added in a murmur, “The women crawling over you like ants at a picnic are all very beautiful . . . ” She paused deliberately, waiting for him to give her his name.
“Call me . . . Jay,” he said, his voice causing shivers to course through her entire body.
Skylar suddenly felt like she was strangling. Air refused to slip into her lungs, constricted by the tightness in her throat. She was spiraling, hit with desire and want and need, but with the wrong man. She should be feeling this way about Rex. Her fiancé.
She couldn’t do this. Not tonight.
No, wait. That wasn’t right. She couldn’t do what she came to do withthisman. She needed to find a man less . . . less everything.
“I’ll call you nothing,” she responded. Without another word, she slipped past him, pushing through the small crowd of women gawking at her, and exited from behind the velvet divider.
* * *
Julian tiltedhis head and grinned as he watched the alluring woman with the nearly white hair walk away. His platinum blond princess. His cock hardened as an image of him ramming deep into her sweet pussy slipped into his mind. Most of the women here were ready for action, eager to get into his pants or the pants of any other gold-masked man—or woman—at the Masquerade Party. And yet this woman had an aura of both confidence and self-doubt. Excitement and fear. Arousal and hesitancy.
She’d piqued his interest and turned him on.
And there was more, too. Something had passed between the two of them as they connected gazes. He’d looked up the moment the drape in the ballroom shifted. It was only a glance in those few seconds before the drape fell back into place, but her eyes remained in his vision as if he’d stared too long into the sun. Honey-golden eyes, so sharp, harsh, and intelligent, caught his and held . . . unspoken words passing between them.
He hadn’t wanted to look away.
