music turned soft and sensual. Ruby’s heart thumped against her ribcage. She really needed to get away from him and the way he made her feel.
‘So if you don’t want to dance and you don’t want to trade names—’ his gaze drifted to her lips like a feather-light caress ‘—what do you want to do?’
Kiss you, she thought, her body already responding to his lingering look. I want to kiss you and never stop.
‘One dance.’ He gave her a slow smile as if he knew the appalling direction in which her mind had just taken her. ‘I’m harmless, I promise.’
‘I’ll call you tomorrow, I promise.’
The last thing Ruby wanted was to find herself in Sam’s arms again but he was so smooth he’d divested her of the two glasses she’d been clutching like a lifeline and had her there before she had time to blink.
Which only made her angry. What was it about this man that eroded her natural born caution? She didn’t want this and she certainly didn’t want him. Only, she knew she was lying to herself. There was something about Sam Ventura that got to her every single time and try as she might she couldn’t seem to do anything about it.
She risked a glance up into his eyes to find him watching her closely. Did she feel familiar in his arms? She was shorter without her heels on but...
Oh, get over yourself, Ruby Jane. He doesn’t know who you are so forget it. Have a laugh.
But she couldn’t have a laugh, not with his heat surrounding her and setting her pulse racing, not with his face so close to hers she could see the beginnings of his beard coming in, and not with his scent, spicy and masculine with a hint of sandalwood, short-circuiting her brain.
All she could do was remember the feel of his skin beneath her fingertips, slightly rough, his lips warm and firm against her own. It was like being sent back in time. She wanted to feel those lips again. She wanted to feel the power of his need again, his hunger for her. She’d never felt like that in a man’s arms before and it was nothing short of addictive.
No man forgets a woman he’s kissed before. At least he doesn’t if he has any integrity.
Did he remember kissing her? Would it come back to him if she was to reach up and kiss him now?
Inwardly shocked to realise where her thoughts were leading her, Ruby jerked back. Kissing Sam Ventura was the last thing she should be thinking of doing. This man was dangerous to her equilibrium. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name.
‘You okay, angel?’ He drew her closer as she stumbled, bending to murmur in her ear. Ruby’s breath caught as his warm breath skittered across the sensitive skin of her neck. That name—he’d called her angel two years ago as well...
Shaking off the unwanted memory, she firmed her resolve against his effect on her.
‘No, I’m not okay,’ she said, making her first sane decision of the night and stepping out of his arms to push blindly through the throng of oblivious partygoers as she rushed from the room.
A stone terrace loomed in front of her, showcasing a captivating view of the harbour beyond, and Ruby headed for it, swiftly moving some distance down a narrow terraced walkway lined with fairy lights that wound around the side of the house.
‘Wait.’
Unaware that Sam had followed her, but not surprised, she stopped, the throb of the music just a low beat now they were outside.
‘What happened back there?’ His concerned gaze caught hers, his eyes scanning her face. He was so close to her she could feel the heat and energy from his body permeating her own.
Panic was what had happened back there. Jumbled senses and racing pulses was what had happened. Need and want...
‘Listen,’ he began, reaching for his mask. ‘I think it’s time we—’
‘No!’ Ruby startled him into silence when she grabbed for his arm and prevented him from unhooking his mask. She couldn’t think of anything worse than him unmasking himself now because he’d expect her to do the same. Which would put her in the position of explaining why she had acted the way she had. It would mean she would have to explain how she’d felt so overwhelmed by the heat of his body, his touch on her waist, his breath against her skin, that she’d run. Explain how in that moment she had wanted more of it. More of him.
‘Hey...’ he murmured softly, accurately reading her inner distress, his fingers gentle as he touched her chin. ‘Look at me.’
She did, the low light of the garden casting shadows across his strong jaw and carved lips, his dark hair falling forward over his mask.
He was so beautiful. So masculine. The bronze of the mask giving him an otherworldly appearance that only added to his appeal.
Ruby’s breathing altered, becoming choppy as they stared at each other. She tried to shake her head to clear her senses but his fingers prevented her from breaking eye contact with him. She irrationally felt light-headed, drunk on the clean, intoxicating scent of musk and man. Then his other hand sought the nape of her neck and she didn’t know if he leaned down further or she stretched upwards but suddenly his lips were on hers, warm and firm and utterly compelling.
Wide-eyed, she met his stunned gaze and then she couldn’t help herself: she lowered her eyelids and opened her mouth. She heard a deep groan rumble out of his chest as he felt her submit to the inevitable and he slanted his lips more fully across hers to deepen the kiss. It burned through her like liquid fire, drugging her, consuming her, triggering an avalanche of need deep inside she was powerless to resist.
A faint voice in her head warned her that this was a mistake, that if she played with fire she’d get burned. She heard it and accepted it, but stronger than that was this fierce, unbidden need for this moment to continue, for this pleasure never to end. She didn’t know if it was the intimacy of the night, the mask hiding her identity from him or the fact that she’d denied herself any form of sensual pleasure for so long, but she knew she was as lost to his touch as she had been two years ago. Maybe more so.
His lips moved over hers, sure and confident, her senses so attuned to the feel of him that she felt when he would have pulled back from her.
‘Don’t,’ she murmured softly, her arms around his neck. ‘Please, don’t stop.’
* * *
Sam groaned and complied with Ruby’s request even though logic and instinct told him to—for God’s sake, man—rein it in. It had been like this with her two years ago. Intensely intimate, sinfully erotic. Just the touch of her mouth against his was enough to have him losing his head. Now, holding her like this, feeling her unguarded response to him was sheer, unadulterated torture.
His arms banded around her, urging her closer, the soft, desperate whimpers coming from the back of her throat driving him to move them both further into the shadows cast by a small, cut-away corner of the building.
Her arms tightened around his neck and Sam ran his hands down over the boning of her gown. She arched against him, her breasts rising and falling above the low-cut neckline, threatening to spill out. Breasts he’d longed to see, longed to taste.
Telling himself that he’d stop this lunacy in one more moment, he slid his hand along the slender curve of her arm and shoulder and down to cup her rounded flesh in the palm of his hand.
Her breath caught inside her chest and she arched higher against him. Sam sensed the need in her, felt it in his own blood, and seared an urgent path of heated kisses down the long line of her neck. Her head fell back as a shiver went through her, her body leaning more heavily against his. He braced his arm across her lower back, his feverish eyes taking in the creamy skin of her décolletage, pearl-white in the ribbons of moonlight that breached the overhanging trees.
Heat and fire coursed a dangerous path inside him, burning up all rational thought as sensation overwhelmed