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he slanted his lips over hers, excitement sizzling just beneath his skin.
    Kissing a woman was nothing like kissing a man. A woman eliciting a breathy moan reduced him to a pile of ash. A woman dancing her tongue past his lips turned him hard as stone. A woman straining forward, her arms bound on either side of her body, her throat taut beneath his fingertips as she tried to get closer, closer to him, as though determined to crawl inside his soul…it drove him to the precipice of insanity, and he teetered on the edge as he gripped her to him.
    She was a feast for a starving man, and Gaspard had lived too long in famine.
    So long, in fact, that he stood a heartbeat away from forgetting who he was as he reveled in who he could be. Her lips moved under his, offering him a taste of madness as she sipped from his mouth. A dangerous shiver snaked down his spine, urging him to delight in her response—in his own response—but it couldn’t last.
    He needed a clear head if he meant to tempt Claudia and her ten thousand pounds away from Sabien. Dimmed but not doused, his lust receded warily, though a throbbing force within him ached to tease, to play with her as he’d promised. Catching her upper lip gently between his teeth, he sucked it, nipped at it, wanting to sting as he’d been stung. His voice was hoarse when he opened his eyes and said, “Your first lesson.”
    Dark lashes fluttered upward to reveal even darker irises. Warm color mottled her cheeks, her parted lips bitten to raspberry redness. “K-kissing?”
    “Kissing.” The hand at her throat traveled across her shoulder, over the bared skin of her upper arm, and the supple muscle bunched tight. Her arms must be hurting by now, given the way she’d fought against her bonds, and in all the deviant games he believed he enjoyed, causing Claudia real pain was not one of them. His fingers reached for the knot at her wrist.
    “No.”
    He froze. “No?”
    “D-don’t…don’t release m-me,” she whispered. “Unless our t-time is up?”
    Time. Damn it, Gaspard had forgotten they had only limited minutes together in the closet. Their time likely was gone, and one kiss wasn’t enough to sway her, no matter how incendiary. “I am not finished with you.” He stepped away from the wicked heat of her body. “One lesson will not teach you all you need to know,” he said, reminding them both of just whom she was learning for.
    “Another kiss?” Eagerness gave her hushed words vibrant life.
    “I think a different lesson.” Even though he wanted his mouth on hers again, that madness beckoning, her lips a siren song destined to strand him on the rocks. His mind raced with possibilities, any means for turning her in her affections. “Submission.” Saying the word left him cold then hot, memories of the past sidling close to rub and purr against the reality of his present.
    She blinked, confused, and inched back against the shelf. “S-s-submission,” she repeated without inflection.
    He knelt to snatch the blindfold from where it lay half-hidden beneath the hem of her gown, then stood, dangling the strip of fabric in front of her. “Cede me your control, kitten. You will find freedom in it, je vous promets .” A promise he needed to keep, for both their sakes.
    Indecision warred in her dilated eyes. Her tongue darted out, dampening that plump lower lip before asking, “I let you d-do as you wish, and…and you’ll k-kiss m-me again?” There was hunger in her husky voice.
    That, and so much more. “ Oui. ”
    “All right, then.” She seemed to brace herself, her longing gaze dropping to his mouth. “D-do it.”
    Carefully, he laid the satin blindfold across the bridge of her nose, wrapping it around her head and tying a swift knot below the coil of hair at her crown. Her unsteady breaths heated his lips where they hovered over hers.
    Gripping the shelf on either side of her head, he leaned into her, letting her feel the hard press of his body and how easily