She pushed out a laugh. “Mercy,” she said, “you ought to set up a booth at Bartholomew Fair and tell fortunes. People would pay good money to have their characters delineated so incisively.”
“Learning about other people doesn’t interest me.” His gaze held hers. “Learning about you does.”
Her breath caught as they stared at each other.
He stepped closer, and warmth radiated from his body into hers. “Will you join me for a dance?”
There was no mistaking the intention in his low, seductive words, especially as almost no one on the dance floor was actually dancing.
Could I? More to the point, should I?
Guests propositioned her nearly every night the house was open, and that clearly hadn’t changed since she’d become proprietress. Her breathing had never quickened with those guests. When she’d fielded their offers, she hadn’t felt the heat of the room pressing against her sensitized flesh.
She had never been tempted, not enough to neglect her duties.
But this buccaneer—with his Irish accent and his wicked lips and his burning blue eyes—he enticed her. To hell with all her rules and caution. She could lose herself in heat and sensation. Without a doubt, he could give her an abundance of pleasure.
But the club, and her dream, came first. Entangling herself with a guest led to complications, and any complication—such as an importunate or jealous lover—would throw yet more obstacles in her path. He would demand her time, her attention, and neither could be spared. She couldn’t afford to be distracted by a man. And this man would assuredly be a distraction.
She struggled to lock away her reaction to him, like a keeper of wild beasts trying to urge a tiger back into its cage.
“There are so many available partners,” she said.
“I want to dance with you.”
Her heart took up a fast rhythm. “I cannot.” Regret tinged her words. She held out her hand. “I’m Amina, the manager.”
His brow above the mask creased with surprise, but like a gentleman, he took her hand and bent over it. Instead of kissing the air above her knuckles, his lips touched her skin.
Fire shot through her body. From the simplest, smallest contact.
He murmured, “I’d introduce myself—”
“But you can’t.” Her voice was breathless. She withdrew her hand, though her skin continued to radiate with his warmth. “For the safety of my guests, I know nothing about them, not even their names.”
“A good precaution.”
“Policy dictates that I don’t get involved with guests.”
His full lips shaped into a frown, and she braced herself for him to ask for an exception, or cajole her, the way other clients had done. Men did not like to hear a woman tell them no.
A moment later, he said, “Understood. I must respect your choice. Everything here is consensual, after all.”
She relaxed slightly. “So it is.” She offered him a smile. “This being your first time, I welcome you. My hope is that everything is to your liking.”
“Everything but the manager’s policy regarding her involvement with guests.” But he smiled as he said this. “This is a wondrous place. We can be our truest selves.”
Much as she wanted to, she couldn’t speculate on his background. Anonymity stood as one of the central tenets of the Orchid Club. Yet he was well dressed, even more finely than a banker or brewer. The artful way he’d bowed revealed a privileged background. She inhaled his scent of gunpowder and spice, taking it deeply into herself, tucking it away for later.
A thousand questions assailed her, wanting to be given a voice. What brought him here tonight? What was he seeking? What responsibilities weighed so heavily upon him that he took delight in the establishment’s offer of freedom?
She could never ask, and never know the answer. “You paid the entrance fee,” she said, “so I urge you to take advantage of what there is to offer.”
She waved toward the dance floor, which had evolved into a mass of sweat-slick flesh. Moans and grunts competed with the music.
Damn the distance she put between herself and the guests. If nothing else, he’d give her several hours of pleasure. Touching her deeper, realer self—that was an impossibility. Letting someone get truly close led straight to disaster and misery.
The buccaneer’s gaze never left her. “The most fascinating and intriguing thing here is you.”
She made herself laugh. “Sirrah, you are fulsome in your blandishments.”
He didn’t laugh or smile, his expression utterly serious. “When I set foot outside these doors,” he said, “I don’t need to flatter anyone. What I want, I get. So believe me when I say honestly that I’d much rather talk with you than fuck a stranger.”
Her heart thudded. “Because, unlike everyone else, I tell you no.”
“Because you intrigue me beyond measure.”
She could only stare at him. The part of herself that she’d locked away, the part that longed for comfort and affection and all the things lovers shared, ached with want. Oh, she’d taken men to her bed over the years, but other than physical gratification, she’d made certain those encounters never touched her heart. She had been forged through hardship and loss, treading a solitary path. If sometimes her body throbbed for want of someone to hold her all through the night, if she ached for someone to whisper into her hair that she was to be cherished . . . she tamped it all down.
Think of Mamma. Her pain and loss.
Yet here was this man, this guest, a person unknown to her. Her buccaneer. Offering a taste of what could never be.
“I must go,” she said. “My duties can’t be neglected.”
His mouth turned down, but he nodded. “I will be back soon. To see you, Amina.”
It wasn’t her real name, yet the sound of it on his lips sent a dark thrill through her. Oh, to hear him call her Lucia as he joined his body with hers . . .
He gave another bow before turning and striding away. She watched him, her gaze riveted to the width of his shoulders and how beautifully his breeches fit his long, muscular legs. Compelled to follow, she trailed several paces after him, observing him as he walked. He didn’t join any of the couplings but went straight for the door.
Lucia did not follow him any farther. The threshold was where her dominion ended.
Taking a deep breath, she straightened her shoulders and adjusted her mask.
The club’s policy was to be open every week. Perhaps the buccaneer would return then. Perhaps she might see him once more, and they could talk, as they had tonight.
Her breath came faster.
In all her time here, he was the only guest who ever truly caught her attention, the only guest she’d wanted for her own selfish pleasure.
Doesn’t matter. Flirtation is all we can ever share. The establishment—and the profits it generated—was too important to her to throw anything away on a casual encounter.
Drawing herself up straight, she continued on with the rest of her night. There were responsibilities that needed tending—keeping the refreshments circulating, ensuring the staff’s well-being and the guests’ safety, maintaining the club’s spotlessness—a hundred tiny tasks she had to supervise. Yet, like a child sneaking tastes of her parents’ wine, she permitted