Perhaps he would not have reacted so strongly if she had been!
Of course he would, Darian instantly chastised himself. It was only that there was something so provocative about the tantalising glimpses of those slender and obviously naked curves as Mariah moved across the room to collect her gloves from the bed, giving just the hint of those golden curls nestling between her thighs. And her breasts were magnificent; creamy, full and plump, with those red and succulent rouged nipples just begging to be tasted and suckled.
Darian wanted nothing more at that moment than to lay Mariah down upon the bed before taking those berries into his mouth and sucking and tasting their plumpness until he was sated.
If he ever was!
As for the shadow of those darker golden curls and the promise of what lay hidden between her thighs—
Darian imagined lowering her gently down on to the bed and pushing her gown up her thighs so that he might explore every silken inch of that hidden treasure. To caress the plumpness of her folds. Taste and suck the tiny nubbin above—
Beads of perspiration broke out on Darian’s forehead as he fought an inward battle not to give in to the urge to cross the room and take Mariah in his arms, to fulfil every single one of the fantasies that had been slowly driving him insane and that he now found impossible to stop.
‘I am ready to go downstairs and join the other guests, if you are?’
It took every effort of his indomitable will to pull Darian back from the brink of giving in to his desires, his voice harsh as he answered her. ‘Do you have a shawl or something you can wear about your shoulders?’ The thought of other men ogling Mariah’s almost naked breasts, and that tantalising outline of her naked curves beneath her gown, was enough to make him clench his fists violently.
Mariah gave a bell-like laugh as she collected up a fan from her dressing table rather than a shawl. ‘You will see, Darian, my gown is quite modest in comparison with the gowns some of the other ladies will be wearing this evening.’
He had no interest in what the other ladies were wearing this evening; they could all walk around stark naked for all Darian cared. But if he caught one single gentleman in the act of ogling Mariah— He was behaving more than ridiculously, Darian recognised self-disgustedly, when he had no more right to approve or disapprove of other gentlemen ogling Mariah, tonight or any other night, than—than the Prince Regent did!
Although he had no doubt that the Prince Regent, if he had been one of the guests this evening, would have taken great delight in enjoying Mariah’s appearance. The man might be plumper and more dissipated than he had been in his youth, but he still had charm enough to seduce the ladies.
Whereas Darian’s charm, what little he did possess—and no doubt Mariah would say he possessed none!—seemed to have completely deserted him for the moment.
‘Darian?’ Mariah prompted again lightly.
He gathered himself to straighten determinedly before crossing the room to hold out his arm to her, feeling much as he had when he had necessarily to prepare himself before a battle.
And unsure whether that battle this evening would be with his own wayward emotions, or with the other gentlemen present.
Mariah was enjoying herself.
Actually enjoying herself, when normally she would simply have gone through the motions of doing so at this sort of entertainment, flirting and laughing with the gentlemen whilst at the same time keeping them in line—and their groping hands firmly at bay—with a delicately aimed flick of her fan.
And the reason she was enjoying herself was standing broodingly at her side now that all the guests had retired to the drawing room following dinner, giving every appearance of a dark and avenging angel, ready to swoop down on any who might even think of crossing over the invisible line he had drawn about the two of them since they had sat down to dinner earlier.
The dark and avenging angel Darian Hunter, the Duke of Wolfingham.
As she had warned Wolfingham before coming down the stairs earlier, most of the other ladies were dressed much more daringly than she was this evening. Indeed, there was a plethora of completely bared breasts visible about the drawing room as the gentlemen, and many of the ladies, completely against the normal rules of polite society, enjoyed an after-dinner brandy together. Most of the gowns were without the benefit of that layer of lace that covered Mariah’s breasts and several of the gowns were made of a totally transparent and gauzy material that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.
And for all the notice Wolfingham had taken—was still taking!—of any of those erotically displayed ladies, they might as well have been wearing sackcloth.
It was a refreshing change for Mariah to be in the presence of a gentleman whose gaze was not constantly wandering to the half-naked bodies of other women.
Just as Wolfingham’s glowering and tight-lipped disapproval of the approach of both the ladies and the gentlemen present this evening had kept everyone but their hostess from attempting to interrupt their privacy. Wolfingham had wasted no time in dispatching that lady, too, with a few choice and tersely spoken words.
Instead, he had centred all of his attention on Mariah as they ate the sumptuously prepared dinner served to them earlier, his conversation exclusive, and occasionally feeding her the odd delicacy of food from his own plate, as a way, no doubt, of giving further illusion to their intimacy.
Mariah had blushed like a schoolgirl the first time Darian behaved so unexpectedly, that blush having deepened as he centred his hawklike gaze upon her lips when she finally leant forward to take the food from his fork. She had been better prepared the second time it had happened, but still felt unaccountably hot at the way his green gaze stared so intently at her lips.
And throughout all of it Darian had seemed completely unaware of the sexual play going on about them.
The assembled company had been slightly restrained to begin with, all obviously aware of having the imposing Duke of Wolfingham within their midst, but several glasses of wine later, along with Wolfingham’s apparent distraction with Mariah, and those inhibitions had quickly fallen away.
Several of the gentlemen had openly caressed and tweaked bared breasts, and one gentleman had even crawled beneath the table for several minutes, the expression of rapture on the flushed face of the actress seated next to him, followed by her breathy and noisy gasps of pleasure as she climaxed, clearly showing where that gentleman was lavishing his attentions.
Mariah had glanced away as if bored as the gentleman crawled back up into his seat, his mouth moist and lips swollen, the expression on his flushed face becoming one of equal rapture as that lady returned the favour, by unbuttoning his pantaloons and openly stroking him until he, too, reached a completion.
It was a disgusting and embarrassing display, and one that Mariah had been forced to witness at least a dozen times during these past seven years of spying for the Crown.
And one that tonight had caused a flush of heat to course through Mariah’s own veins and an unaccustomed tingling and warmth to spread between her thighs.
A heat and tingling that she had preferred not to question too deeply.
‘Say no, Darian,’ she warned Wolfingham softly now as she shook her own head at Clara Nichols as the other woman moved about the room gathering up the people who wished to play cards.
Darian gave a terse shake of his own head to their poutingly disappointed hostess before moving to stand slightly in front of Mariah, the broadness of his back and shoulders blocking her from the view of the majority of the other guests in the room. ‘Why?’ he returned as softly.
Mariah looked up at him beneath lowered lashes. ‘Because I doubt you will like the forfeit if you lose. Do you ever lose?’
Darian