Page 51 of What a Lord Wants

He didn’t answer, except for a rakish lift of his brow.

Her stomach plummeted. No wonder Dom didn’t want to caress her the way Eve had wanted him to. Why would he, when he had women like Sabrina and Constance gracing his bed? What was she in comparison? Nothing but an innocent miss who refused to remove her clothes, even when all he wanted to do with her was paint.

“So you’re Evelyn Winslow, daughter of the man who owns Winslow Shipping and Trade and sister-in-law to Lord Robert Carlisle,” he drawled, gazing boldly at her. As if meeting her for the first time. “The same woman whom the dowager Duchess of Trent sponsored this season.”

“Yes.”

“Any other secrets I should know about, then?” The lightness he forced into his voice couldn’t hide his lingering irritation with her. “You’re not a princess or a spy for the War Office?”

“I wish,” she sighed. And wholly meant it. “Just boring, old me.”

“There are lots of things about you, Eve. Butboringcertainly isn’t one of them.”

She couldn’t help the warmth that blossomed inside her chest. He’d meant that as a gentle chastisement, but he’d inadvertently given her the best compliment imaginable. Even better than calling her beautiful.

“I’m sorry for ruining your painting,” she whispered.

He blew out a long breath and muttered, “So am I.”

She dropped her gaze to the end of the robe’s belt and twisted it around her hand. “I didn’t mean to waste your time. At first, I was caught up in the adventure of it all, in the excitement of being able to get away from home. And watching you paint was simply…”Captivating,enthralling, erotic…But there were some things she would never admit. “Entertaining. Then, later, I was having too much fun.” She forced a small shrug. “And you made me feel beautiful.”

“You are.”

Surprised at the unrestrained honesty in his voice, she darted her eyes to his, and her breath hitched at the heated look he gave her. Slowly and deliberately, he slid his gaze over her, from the tips of her bare toes to her half-covered legs beneath the hem of the robe, over her breasts, and up to her face. She felt his gaze as palpably as if he were stroking his hands over her.

But even that wasn’t enough. That soft ache between her legs beckoned her onward.

Forcing her hands not to shake, she reached up to unpin her hair, then shook it loose across her shoulders and down her back. The raw desire that darkened his face made her breath come shallow and fast, and it transformed the soft ache inside her into an eager throbbing.

“Dom,” she whispered, unable to find words for what she wanted from him as she reclined across the chaise. Her body begged to be painted.

He raked his fingers through his hair and looked away, his gaze coming to rest on the canvas on the easel, half-finished beneath its dust sheet. His voice turned uncharacteristically husky as he mumbled, “It’s a damned shame we can’t finish it.”

Her heart stuttered with a brutal thud. So this was the end of the adventure…and also of Dom’s presence in her life. She flinched beneath the anguish of it.

He’d trusted her as his model, and even now he trusted her with his real identity. He hadn’t asked her to keep it secret, because he knew she would. Proof that she was special to him…and him to her.

“But you can,” she insisted in little more than a breath, making her decision about how this night would end.

He gave a strangled laugh. “Never.”

Gathering her resolve, she stood. He looked back at her, his body stiffening as he watched her trembling hands reach for the belt and loosen the knot. The robe slipped off her shoulders and piled on the floor at her bare feet.

Without a trace of shame, she draped herself across the velvet chaise, one arm tucked beneath her head, the other with her hand resting on her belly and her fingers splayed across her flesh—the same pose in which he’d been painting her. She stared boldly back at him. Completely nude.

Chapter 14

Sweet Lucifer.

Dom stared at her, unable to breathe. Unable to move at all, except for the pounding of his heart and a flexing of his cock.

Good God, she was beautiful. Not just her body, finally laid bare to him, with the fullness of her breasts, the soft curves of her hips as they rounded down into her thighs…the silky waves of her red hair spilling across her shoulders, with one wanton curl daring to tease at a dusky pink nipple.

No. It was her expression that held him prisoner. That same appearance of innocent invitation he’d glimpsed in her the day they met. That look of being secretly stumbled upon, of nervously contemplating what could be allowed to happen if consequences were thrown aside. Only Eve could create such emotion, with her determination to grab onto life by both hands and not let go. Her eyes glowed with it, and her lips parted delicately in anticipation of what could be—

The subject he’d longed to capture. The real woman with the inner light of a goddess.

Her face softened patiently, as if she knew that his artist’s soul was warring with the gentleman inside him. “Finish the painting, Dom.”