Page 67 of What a Lord Wants

“My husband is a marquess and powerful member of the Lords,” she countered, “who is quite capable of defending himself against punch-drinking party guests.” When he stopped in front of her, she tilted back her head to gaze up at him and added, her voice as soft as the shadows around her, “He’s also a brilliant artist.”

“Is he?” His chest warmed at her compliment. A man could easily get used to hearing things like that. “Then best not to tell him that you’re here alone with me.”

She laughed softly, the lilting sound musical in the quiet studio. A man could certainly get used to hearingthat, too.

He reached out to tuck a stray curl behind her ear as he lowered himself onto the balls of his feet. When he dropped his hand away, he rested it on her knee, unable to stop touching her. “Why did you come here? We have a perfectly good home on the park, with servants to take care of whatever we need.”

She gave a faint shrug as she glanced around the studio. “I feel more comfortable here.”

Of course she did. Only Eve would feel more at home in a bohemian artist’s studio than in a grand townhouse.

“But you’re a marchioness now. There’s no more reason for you to come here and be bored.”

“I was never bored here.” She reached out to brush her fingers through his hair at his temple. “Not with you.”

Not trusting his voice, he took her hand in his and placed a kiss to her palm.

“I won’t come here anymore after tonight.” She swept her gaze around the room. “But I wanted to see it one last time.”

The melancholy sadness lacing her voice struck him with a stab of guilt that he was taking this place away from her. But he had no choice. He couldn’t have her here distracting him while he worked. He hadn’t lied to her. He would give her his undivided attention when he was with her. But when he was painting, she couldn’t be near. His focus had to be completely on his work.

Yet it wasn’t only the effect she would have on his art that concerned him. If she kept coming here, someone would eventually discover his secret, and he couldn’t risk that whoever that person was would be a hell of a lot better at blackmail than Constance.

He squeezed her fingers. “You do understand why you can’t come back?”

“I do.” She slipped her feet out from beneath her, sitting forward to cup his face between her hands. “But doyouunderstand why I feel compelled to show you how to embrace life? Not just your art, but all of it?”

He grinned and slid his arms around her. “If that’s a warning, you shouldn’t make it sound so enticing.”

“I’m serious, Dominick.”

Knowing this little adventuress as well as he did, he was certain of that. “I have Vincenzo’s reputation shadowing me. I think I’ve embraced life quite well.”

“Not that.” Her amber eyes searched his face with an intensity that quaked through him. “I want to help you putthisinto every work you create.” She slid her hand down to his chest, to rest her palm over his heart, which leapt wildly beneath her fingertips. “So that you can make masterpieces.”

Andthatmade his heart melt. The sweet ache of it twisted in his gut as he rasped out, “You already have.”

He rose up and kissed her, bringing his lips to hers in a gentle yet sultry kiss that tried to convey exactly how he felt about the experience she’d given him. He’d come closer to finding sublimity in his art when he’d been painting her than at any other moment in his life.

He stroked his knuckles across her cheek, then down the elegant length of her neck to her shoulder. He caressed over her arm and along the side of her body, down her legs and all the way to the tips of her toes. Not a touch of desire but one of reverence.

She trembled when he reached up to unpin her hair, then ran his hands through her soft strands to loosen the ginger waves down her back. His eyes moved over the delicate lines of her face that he’d come to know so well, her full lips inviting and delectable, those expressive amber eyes…

He brushed his lips over her cheek and murmured against the soft flesh beneath her ear, “I want to paint you again,mia bella.” He couldn’t hold back a soft groan at the temptation she posed, the longing she stirred inside him to be able to find a way to capture all of her, body and spirit. “Just like this.”

“I’m a bit overdressed for one of your paintings, don’t you think?”

At the teasing lilt in her voice, he nuzzled her cheek with an exaggerated growl. “We can take care of that.” When she laughed, he shifted back onto his heels to gaze at her and frowned, puzzled. “Whyareyou still in your dress? You’re risking getting paint on it.”

“Because I was waiting for my husband,” she softly confessed. “Would you undress me, Dominick?”

His cock flexed at the soft request. She hadn’t meant it as a seduction, surely not. Not when she gazed up at him so artlessly. Not when she’d never invited a man to undress her before and so had no idea how arousing it could be.

But that contradictory mix of innocence and seduction that first drew him to her all those weeks ago now struck him like a punch.

“That is, if you don’t mind.”

Not mind? He wanted nothing else in the world as much as he wanted to do exactly that. Somehow he found the steadiness to answer like a gentleman, “Of course. Allow me.”