Warmth tripped through him along with her hushed words. What was it about a whisper that created an immediate veil of intimacy around two people?
“There’s a floor show every hour. Sort of a Vegas-style event with lots of—” Half-naked bodies. Painted-on tattoos over women’s nipples. See-through feathers in the place of panties. “—costumes.”
She’d see for herself soon enough. The parade of perfect female bodies and fluffy white feathers was already snaking through the club toward the open dance floor. He and Nico had been trying for weeks to convince Giselle that the sex-drenched club was no place for a young woman to work, but to no avail so far.
Renzo didn’t take any note of the parade of bare flesh, however. He simply watched Esme’s reaction, mesmerized by her transparent features as her face registered surprise, titillation and pleasure at the seductive moves performed by the Moulin Rouge’s dancers.
Her cheeks flushed pink the first time a dancer sent a limber high kick in their direction. Her soft lips parted on a little gasp when another woman brought her supple bump-and-grind routine a few inches from their table.
Was Esmerelda Giles—who, according to her, had never quite lived up to her name—as innocent as she appeared? She had to be in her mid-to-late twenties if she’d worked as an art historian for five years. Didn’t that sort of profession call for some kind of postgraduate work? Surely she couldn’t be all that inexperienced. But there was an undeniable naiveté about her actions, an unexpected sense of wonder Renzo found incredibly appealing.
So many women he’d dated were blatantly in charge of their sexual desire. The dating mentality these days seemed to be I want this, I want it nonstop for 12.2 minutes and I don’t want to wait for it. Did it make him a chauvinist to think that in women’s rush for control in the bedroom a certain willingness to go with the flow, an openness to try new things, had been lost?
Spontaneity seemed like a quaint notion of the past.
However, it seemed like a quality Esme Giles might possess.
Too bad he wasn’t going to act on the growing attraction he felt for her.
Besides, Esme wasn’t the sort of woman a guy could just cart back to his room. She was more demure than that. More subtle. A woman with delicate ethics and old-fashioned values.
JUST HOW DID A WOMAN go about enticing an Italian stud back to her bedroom?
Esme pondered the question as she stared across the table at her sexy-as-sin date.
The seductive performance of the feather-clad dancers had just ended and the music pulsing through the club switched from the blood-pumping salsa to a funky R&B song that had everyone on the floor. Something about the staged show remained with Esme, some vaguely erotic longing, a latent desire to perform and be noticed in the bold manner the dancers had called attention to themselves.
If she could claim that kind of sensual power, she would surely be an in-charge woman to be reckoned with. A fierce female. A woman who ran with the wolves.
All of which was exactly what she needed. And she’d be on her way to having those things with one simple seduction.
The decision to pursue her date wasn’t nearly as difficult as she might have expected. She couldn’t deny an instant attraction to his dark good looks and his fathomless brown eyes. Under normal circumstances she would have crossed her fingers that he would call her—knowing all the time he wouldn’t—and wasted a lot of time being disappointed.
But under her new life principle, she would do the opposite of wait around. She’d call the shots, she’d seduce him, and maybe—just maybe—she’d actually get what she wanted in life for a change.
Simple.
Of course, Esme fully recognized the brilliant plan was probably helped along by the happy combination of champagne and Good Fortune Potion zipping through her system. Other women did this all the time, however, so she refused to worry about the consequences.
Her date—Hugh, she reminded herself—leaned closer, the short sleeve of his black T-shirt brushing her shoulder as he did. “So what did you think of the show? The Moulin Rouge Lounge has caused a bit of a local uproar with the antics of their dancers.”
Esme rejoiced over the conversational opening and prayed she wouldn’t blow it. “I thought it was incredibly sexy. Very…stimulating. Definitely inspiring.”
Hugh’s jaw dropped just a little. Esme hoped that was a good sign.
“Really? Some of our local politicians are making a push to put more restrictions on the creative license of the performance.”
“The audience is appropriately mature here.” Esme shook her head, thinking of all the risqué artworks from antiquity that were accumulating dust in the basements and storerooms of museums all over the world. “Throughout history, there has always been a movement to suppress sexual art, but who exactly is getting hurt in the wake of a little titillation at an adult dance club?” She cast him what she hoped was a suggestive smile and flipped her hair over one shoulder. “So a few more men and women go home together tonight because a provocative dance has gotten them fired up. What harm is there in that?”
Hugh’s dark eyes widened.
Did he have no clue what she was driving at here? Perhaps a woman needed to be more overt about what she wanted.
“I agree there’s no harm,” he started, the words seeming to stick in his throat a bit.
Esme rushed to clarify. “All I’m saying is that we ought to be able to appreciate the invitation to seduction without feeling guilty because we enjoyed it, you know?”
Hugh shrugged. “I wouldn’t say I feel guilty. But some people—”
“That’s great.” She squeezed his forearm, relishing the way a man’s arm contained muscle in the most innocuous of places and hoping positive reinforcement would help steer him in her direction. “Because I don’t feel guilty either. You want to walk me up to my room?”
“You have a room here?” His voice rasped across another throaty note.
Esme handed him his half-full goblet. “Tonight was a birthday present from your aunt. Mrs. Wolcott reserved a room for me when she set up our date so I wouldn’t have to worry about taking a bus home.”
“I would have never put you on a bus at two o’clock in the morning, Esme.” His dark eyebrows knit together in that serious manner that warmed her insides. Hugh Duncan knew enough about chivalry to make a woman’s heart beat faster.
“Maybe Mrs. Wolcott just wanted to give me a place to retreat to in case our date didn’t go as well as she’d hoped.” The dear woman. Esme couldn’t wait to give her a big hug and some homemade bread for sending this gorgeous man into her life if only for one night.
“About my aunt—”
Esme jumped up from the table, certain that this line of conversation would only distract them from the flirtatious atmosphere she’d struggled to maintain ever since the feathered dancers had departed the lounge.
Doting aunts were not a topic she wished to discuss while in seduction mode for the first time in her life.
“How about one dance before we call it a night?” She extended her hand to him in yet another unprecedented move. Esme Giles, the woman who’d busted the grading curve in every class she’d ever taken, the college geek turned scholar for life, was asking the most gorgeous guy in the room to dance with her.
And as if her lucky stars were in perfect alignment over her head, the DJ changed the pace to a slow groove, a song that was sexy and danceable and just right for getting close to this man.
Either because of his chivalrous nature or else because he knew fate was conspiring against him, Hugh slid out of the booth and rose to his feet. Esme