AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You allowed… You’re allowing Mr. Fairbanks to paint you…naked?”
She took a sip of champagne, feeling heat pool in her stomach. “Yes.”
Now Elizabeth appeared fit to swoon. “Cressida.”
Her friend murmured her name in a tone of awed alarm. Cressida smiled, oddly liking that she had shocked Elizabeth who had once teased her for being predictable. The orchestra chose that moment to start the first strains of the waltz, and she whirled around, anticipation bubbling inside her when she met Nicholas’s stare over several heads.
“Are you really going to dance with him?” Elizabeth hissed from behind her.
“Yes. It will not be the first time.”
Her friend groaned. “This is far more disastrous than I thought. That you are dancing with him again, surely society will take notice. You are one of their fair princesses and well…he is…he is not a prince. I am certain they will not approve.”
Though some measure of alarm pricked her heart at those words, Cressida lifted her chin and smiled at the man approaching her. “What matters is thatIapprove of him,” she whispered. “Even if he is only a friend.”And perhaps my future lover. The shock and thrill of her inner thoughts sent her heart into a furious pounding rhythm.
Nicholas reached her and Cressida allowed him to sweep her onto the dancefloor, aware of nothing but the man who held her so securely and confidently in his arms, and the surety that if she were not careful, she might fall in love with him.
And that would be rather disastrous indeed.
CHAPTER10
“Sleeping beauty, awake.”
Cressida stirred at that soft, amused whisper. She fluttered open her lashes and stared up into the extraordinary beauty of Nicholas Fairbanks’s gaze. “Your eyes are like sapphires,” she murmured, lifting a finger to trace the hard curve of his jaw. “It is said that all your siblings share the same eye color. Can this possibly be true?”
“It is.”
“That is remarkable.”
He gripped her finger, took it to his mouth and gently nipped the tip. “I’ve finished this session.”
She gasped, pushing up to her elbows and reaching for the robe to hold before her. “I fell asleep!”
“Some time ago.”
She glanced at the clock on the mantel and breathed a sigh of relief. It had only been two hours since she arrived for their second painting session. With the aid of her sister, she had once again donned her disguise and slipped away from her sister’s townhouse. “You should have stirred me.”
“You seemed too peaceful.”
That foreign tenderness stirred inside her chest. It had been wretched dreams of him that had kept her awake, and then she’d spent the day shopping with her sister for bonnets and ribbons.
“What are you doing?” Cressida whispered when he fell to his knees before her.
“Something I have been dying to do for the last couple of hours.” A contemplative expression touched his face. “Nay, I have been wanting to do this for weeks.”
“And what is that?”
“Taste you.”
Heated curiosity rolled through her. “Tasteme?”
“Hmm.” Nicholas gripped her knees and slid his hands upward with firm intent over her thighs. The silken robe was pushed aside, and her lips parted on a silent gasp when his fingers curved along her thighs and around to her hips. He held her gaze and with a motion that was sensually provocative, dragged her to the edge of the sofa. Cressida fell back slightly onto the cushions, her heart an excited thrum in her ears.
“Are we to become lovers tonight?”
“No.” His blue eyes gleamed and that carnally assured smile touched his mouth. “We only have a few minutes before your carriage arrives, my sweet. Have you forgotten the hours I want to linger over you? When we come together, it will not be hasty and hurried. Never that.”
My sweet. Now why did she love the sound of that endearment?
