Read Platinum (Facets of Passion) for Free Online Page B

sight of her, he cut the welder and pulled off his helmet. His hair was damp and curling with sweat. Setting both things aside, he wiped his brow with a cloth and stared at her. He tapped a button on the music saucer. The abrupt silence highlighted the electric tension between them.
    She held up the note, feeling slightly dizzy. “So.”
    “So I see.” His voice was gravelly. She started to uncross her legs. “No. Don’t move.”
    “I just—”
    He came over to her, wiping his hands on the cloth and tossing it aside, and plucked the note from her hand. He folded it and tucked it in his pocket. “Don’t move.”
    Something about the command stirred her, flooded her. Oh yes, she wanted this.
    He walked over to turn on the track lights, focusing them on her. Their warmth caressed her skin, a palpable illumination. He came back to her and stroked roughened fingers up her throat, lifting her chin. “It’s done then?”
    She nodded, caught in his hungry gaze.
    “I want to remember this moment. So you’ll let me do what I want, yes?”
    Her heart gave a great thump. Of fear or excitement. Both. Neither.
    “Well—”
    “I think we should have a rule, princess. Whenever you’re down here with me, you do what I say. Down here, you belong entirely to me.”
    “I never agreed to that,” she whispered.
    He smiled, almost a wistful look on his face, rubbing his thumb over her bottom lip. “I’m asking you to agree now. Only in here. Or we can go up to your pretty apartment and make love in the sunshine if you prefer. Or I can take you out to dinner first. Court you the proper way.”
    “I don’t want dinner.” She wanted to kiss that thumb rubbing over her lip.
    Heat flared in his eyes. “So is that a yes?”
    “What if I don’t like what you want to do?”
    “You have a mouth—” he coaxed it open, nudging his thumb just inside, “—and a tongue. You know lots of words. Use them to tell me.”
    She was transfixed. The urge to suck on his thumb felt unbearable. Arousal rode her hard. She closed her teeth lightly on his skin and flicked her tongue against it. He hissed in pleasure.
    “Yes.”
    He grinned, wicked and wanton. “Good. Now—don’t move.” He took her hat from her unresisting hand and arranged it on her head, draping her hair over her shoulder. Lifting her chin, he turned her head so she seemed to gaze off to the side.
    “Do you need your glasses right now?”
    “No.”
    He slid them off her nose and set them on his work bench. She watched out of the corner of her eye as he toed off his boots and shrugged out of the coarse coveralls. To her delight, he wore the white undershirt she’d imagined, his tanned skin dark in contrast. His ragged jeans were ripped, showing enticing glimpses of the muscled legs beneath. He gleamed with sweat and work.
    “Now clasp your hands behind your back.”
    With a little shudder of pleasure, she did, an odd sense of freedom blossoming inside. A lady would never do such things. This was a new her. She wanted him to make her do everything. Maybe she’d thought he’d just fall on her and it would be over with, fast and hot. This, she hadn’t expected. But it was better. She pressed her crossed thighs together, enjoying the pulsing heat there.
    His hands fell to the first little button holding her dress together at the collarbone. He undid it. And placed a kiss on the skin beneath.
    She caught her breath. He was going to undress her.
    “I’ve been thinking of this since this morning. Undoing all your buttons.”
    “It would be faster if I did it,” she replied, holding the pose.
    “But not nearly so fun.” He undid another button, kissed the skin it revealed. She trembled. “You’ll remember this, Althea, how I stripped you in the basement of your own gallery. How you let me.”
    She would never be able to forget it. Everything seared into her with vivid clarity.
    It was excruciating. Exhilarating. Impossible.
    As impatient as he’d acted to have her