for an appealing combination of strength and approachability, drawing the eye up to the spill of water-dark hair pushed back from his forehead. His hair would be lighter once it dried, although right now it was the shade of walnuts. His hair had been the colour of sweet pralines in the ballroom. He was a finely made man, too. She’d already noticed how tall and lean-muscled he was and with the manners to go with the looks. To dance with him in a ballroom would be a dream...a dream she should not be entertaining given her circumstances. It would certainly have helped lessen his appeal if he’d been a boor.
‘Why do you suppose he chose to wager you and not the dress?’ Nolan was musing out loud, and she needed to pay attention. Listening was one of a courtesan’s most powerful weapons—the source of information.
‘He was angry with me,’ Gianna replied, not wanting to go into the details. If she was too messy, too complicated, or if he sensed an association with her could be potentially dangerous, he would be rid of her. Nolan raised a brow as if to suggest ‘angry’ didn’t quite explain why a man would wager his daughter in a card game.
She didn’t want to explain. She didn’t want his pity just yet and certainly not his rejection. That was what she’d have if she told him the whole sordid story. She’d tell him later perhaps if she was desperate. Pity could be a tool, too. Besides, telling the story exposed her hand more than she wanted. They might be drinking tea in their nightwear and he might have saved her from drowning but he was still a stranger. So much lay unknown between them. At the moment, she was operating off nothing more than her assumptions about his character.
‘More brandy?’ she offered. She rose with the decanter in hand to cross the short distance between them, but Nolan waved it away.
‘More answers.’ He set his glass down on the low table, pushing it away from him with a sense of finality. Gianna swallowed hard. Small talk was over.
It was time to be bold. She needed a distraction or he’d drag the entire story out of her. She would tell him when she was ready, when she knew she had him and he wouldn’t send her back. Until then, she needed to give him a reason to let her stay. Gianna put down the decanter and pulled off the stopper. She gave it a long, slow lick of her tongue, her eyes on Nolan, watching his reaction. ‘Perhaps we can think of something else to do with the brandy besides drink it.’ Her voice was husky and provocative, the implication clear.
His grey eyes went black at the fantasy she conjured. ‘What are you suggesting?’ His voice had become a husky growl. It was now or never. Gianna seized her courage. She could do this. She knew in theory what men wanted and how to deliver it, if not in practice. But truly, how hard could it be?
Gianna knelt at his knees in the small place between him and the tea table, careful to keep her eyes on his, never letting him guess the boldness was an act. ‘We can find something better to entertain ourselves with besides talk. After all, you didn’t win my conversation in a card game.’ She ran her hands up the insides of his thighs beneath his banyan, over the rough hair of his legs, and she knew the heady sensation of success.
Already his body was shifting, opening to accommodate her touch, his robe falling away to reveal all of him, his phallus starting its journey to arousal as her thumb met with its head, his tip rubbery and tender. She’d not thought it would feel so...vulnerable...when the rest of his body was so very hard. She closed her hand over the length of his shaft, feeling its heat, its pulsing life as it grew harder. She started to stroke.
His hand came down quick and fierce, shackling her wrist. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
‘Do you prefer something else?’ Gianna fired back, defensive in her doubt. Was she doing it wrong?
‘I’d prefer the truth.’ His grip was hard as he brought both of them to their feet. Standing nose to nose or rather nose to chest, she felt the whole force and strength of his presence. Had she misjudged him? Was there cruelty in him yet? Gianna tensed and waited.
‘You haven’t the faintest idea of what you’re doing, of what you’re playing with,’ he accused, and she felt her cheeks burn with shame. He had roused to her touch, her efforts couldn’t have been that far off the mark. Gianna willed herself not to look away from him as he continued his scold. She would not give him or any man the satisfaction of victory. Nolan’s eyes were hard, near-obsidian shards as he made his case. ‘At the palazzo you were not the least interested in sleeping with me. I believe your words were “take your hand off me”. That seems to have changed in a rather short time. Frankly, I find your about-face unbelievable. Perhaps we should try your resolve before this goes any further.’
It was all the warning she had. He seized her mouth in a bruising kiss that left her breathless and reeling from its onslaught, but there was no mistaking this kiss for anything other than what it was—a punishment, a proving ground.
Nolan dragged his mouth away, his eyes narrowed in flinty speculation. ‘That’s what I thought.’ He ran his hand across his mouth, and Gianna knew whatever test he had put to her she had failed. ‘A woman always kisses her truth. Now, why don’t you tell me how it is that a woman who didn’t want to be wagered turns down her freedom when it’s offered to her, especially when she’s not particularly interested in sleeping with me?’
Gianna gathered her dignity and looked him in the eye. She was losing him, not because she lacked competence in the arts of seduction, but because he saw through her, he knew her game and it dulled her one weapon. ‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Before you oh, so conveniently fell into the canal you were about to say “this is where I stay”,’ he prompted, not believing her feint of ignorance. ‘Somewhere between the ballroom and the canal incident, you decided you didn’t want to be free of me.’
His meaning was evident. Anger surged. ‘You think I planned this? You think I wanted to fall into the canal?’
Her own accusation didn’t appear to stoke his temper. His gaze remained steady. He let go of her wrist and crossed his arms over his chest, entrenching. She recognised the signs. ‘There are those who would say you’ve done well for yourself tonight. You’re here, after all, in this sumptuous room. The question is why?’ His voice was a sensuous caution, reminding her that she toyed with a dangerous man in spite of the kindnesses he’d shown her. ‘What do you want so badly, Gianna, you’re willing to put your hand and no doubt eventually your mouth on a stranger’s cock?’
It would have been better to have simply called her a whore. His crass description of her efforts to bribe him into compliance put her over the edge. Whatever restraint she had left fled in the wake of her temper at full boil. She raised her hand and struck him hard across the face, across that beautifully curved sweeping cheekbone.
‘How dare you!’ But she knew how he dared. He dared because it was true. She’d been willing to do that much and more if need be and it shamed her. In those moments she’d become like her mother, the very life she was trying so hard to avoid—a life dependent on a man’s reactions to her charms.
Nolan stepped away from her, his body coiled but controlled. He didn’t even raise a hand to touch the red stain she’d left on his face. She envied him that reserve he could conjure at will. ‘I’m sorry if the truth stings, signorina,’ he said coldly. ‘Please excuse me. I find I’m not good company this evening. I’m going to find a nice stiff drink or two. Make free of the room. I will not be back tonight.’
He couldn’t leave! She was already regretting her actions. Didn’t she know by now violence solved nothing, it only made things worse? How quickly she’d sunk to the very depths she despised in the count. ‘You’re not dressed,’ she asserted hastily. In her anger she might have ruined everything. She couldn’t let him go with things like this. What had she been thinking to strike him? What if he sent for the count? She couldn’t go back.
Nolan’s hand stalled on the doorknob, and he gave her a wry smile. ‘For what I pay here, princess, they’d let me drink naked.’ Then he was gone, leaving her alone with a bed and a half-full decanter of brandy. It should be enough to