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There was an intimacy to their movements that he had not expected to come from something as simple as dancing, but Damon found he liked it. At least he liked dancing with her.
Pulling her in closer, he splayed his fingers over the lowest point of her back until she was pressed gloriously against the hot muscled wall of his chest. He heard her sudden intake of breath and kept moving to the gentle music. He was aware of every line of her body, every shaky breath she was taking, and every staccato beat of her heart.
Not for one second did their gazes stray from each other, and as the music built towards its crescendo Damon dipped her, his arm supporting her back as he tilted her downwards, his head following to press a kiss to the hollow beneath her chin, his lips brushing against a flickering pulse-point.
When he brought her back upright Carrie’s eyes were glazed with the same need that was pounding through his blood. He didn’t remove his arms from around her, and nor did she make any attempt to retreat from him. Her palms were resting lightly against his chest and her lips parted with anticipation.
Damon didn’t really know why he was waiting...only that looking into her mesmerising eyes held an eroticism of its own, seeing her hunger as well as his own reflected back at him. Her breathing hitched even higher, and as her eyes dropped tellingly to his mouth he lowered his face and grazed his lips against hers for the barest second. It was just a taste, but it was long enough for him to know that she was paradise.
‘Damon. Excellent. I’ve been looking for you.’
The voice rang through the large, empty room, causing Carrie to jump guiltily free of his arms. Damon turned his head to see the owner of the chateau coming to a hasty stop as he looked between him and Carrie, belatedly realising that he had interrupted.
Damon cleared his throat, smoothing over the moment of unease. ‘Jean-Pierre, this is Carrie Miller. Carrie, this is the chateau’s owner—Jean-Pierre Valdon.’
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mademoiselle Miller,’ Jean-Pierre murmured, a smile playing about his lips as he bowed his head in Carrie’s direction.
‘Likewise. And congratulations. The chateau and everything about tonight is incredible. I’ll let you two talk.’
Damon began to protest, turning to Carrie with a frown and tightening his hold on her fingers, but she shook her head lightly.
‘It’s fine. I could use some air anyway.’ She squeezed his fingers and sent him an uneven smile. ‘I’ll catch up with you outside.’
Before he could react she was hurrying from the ballroom, and only his eyes were able to follow her.
Oh, God, what had she done? What had shedone?
Sneaking off with him. Letting him confide in her his pain over his father. And then dancing with him.Kissinghim.
Carrie’s head felt on the cusp of explosion, with her heart launching itself against her ribs over and over again as she pressed down on the handle of every door she could find until one opened and she tumbled out into the garden and clean night air washed over her, blessedly cool against her burning skin.
She was supposed to have told him the truth the second she arrived—told him exactly who she was. That had been her intention. She’d rehearsed the words in her head, she’d had them ready, but then...
Then their eyes had met in a way she’d thought could only happen in fairy-stories. And he had looked at her with a glowing appreciation that had made her dizzy, and she had known that he had been seeingher, Carrie Miller, the woman she was. Not her name, not her father’s wealth and influence, buther. And he had touched her. It had been a tiny, insignificant press of his finger to her chin, but that small, single moment of connection had been so potent that she had almost gone up into flames.
Still, she’d tried. Or at least she thought she had—it was all a bit fuzzy. But then he’d taken her hand and led her into the house and...
It had all just been so overwhelming.
Hewas overwhelming. And so was the connection between them. Too overwhelming for Carrie, in all her inexperience, to know how to handle.
She’d felt attraction before, or so she had believed. Even after discovering that Nate had not been what he’d seemed, that their relationship had not been at all what she had thought, Carrie had recognised that she’d played right into his hands by being swept off her feet by his traditional handsomeness.
But none of the time she’d spent with Nate had contained the spectacular sizzling electricity of the past hour. Her heart had never beaten so keenly in his company, and her body had never been so attuned to his hands and his eyes, so in thrall to him the way she was to Damon.
Whatever it was that she’d felt for Nate had been a pale and weak prologue.
This, with Damon, was attraction. Passion. Heat.
This, with Damon, was overwhelmingly, thrillingly, terrifyingly real.
So real it obliterated all else—like the truth she needed to tell him. And she could hardly go back and tell him now, could she?
Not after willingly pressing her body up against his and thrumming with a need that his very masculine touch promised to assuage.
Not after letting him reveal to her the depth of his pain over the loss of his father.
A sob of anguish rose in her throat.
