Surrender The Heart

“It is not a question of rules,” Her voice was brisk. “The fact remains that you have challenged me to a game where you are apparently quite expert, while I have never played it before.”

“Never?” His body stirred at the thought. “I can hardly believe that you have never engaged in a little harmless flirtation.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Your demonstration just now had nothing whatsoever to do with harmless flirtation.”

“I’m flattered.”

“That was not my intention.” Because his velvet voice, coupled with his charming half smile, had her stomach fluttering, her tone was sharper than it might have been.

How could he have thought the little spitfire vulnerable? Chris asked himself. His conscience appeased, he prepared to enjoy himself.

“So tell me, ma chére comtesse—” he relaxed back against the cool marble “—have you been kissed before, or has no man braved your fury?” He grinned. “I do not ask because I am indiscreet. I merely want to know how high are the walls to be scaled.”

“Your effrontery appears to be truly boundless.”

“Assuming that as given, why don’t you answer my question.”

Because his cheeky grin made her want to smile back at him, she took refuge in a haughty look.

“Yes, I have been kissed before.” Clumsy kisses, she thought, or bland ones or simply dull ones. Before she knew it, her gaze had drifted down to Chris’s mouth. His kiss would be—Oh, God, if his mouth had created such delicious sensations when he had touched it to her palm, what would it feel like if he kissed her?

Suddenly aware of the direction of her thoughts, her cheeks flamed, but she did not avert her gaze, not even when she saw the knowledge in his eyes.

“Go ahead, Ariane.” Slowly he pushed away from the balustrade again and took a step forward and then another. “Go ahead and satisfy your curiosity.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Liar.” He took another step toward her. “Kiss me. Don’t say you don’t want to.”

“No.” That one small word seemed to cost her all her breath.

“Afraid?”

“Cautious.”

“One could think that you believe me a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

Ariane gave Chris a long, slow look before she shook her head. “No. I don’t think you would ever bother disguising yourself with sheep’s clothing.” Giving in, she grinned. “At best you’re a wolf wearing a scrap of some poor sheep’s pelt who was too imprudent or too slow getting away.”

He laughed. “You have a wicked tongue, Ariane.”

One association led to another and his laughter died as he imagined taking her mouth, twining his tongue around hers, tasting it, feeling her passion come to life.

The heat in his eyes was so intense that Ariane would have sworn that she felt it on her skin. “So I’ve been told.” Her voice had grown softer and softer until she had only mouthed the last word.

They stared at each other, breath uneven, pulses racing.

“So where do we go from here, Ariane?” Chris asked when he was certain he could speak without babbling like a fool.

“I don’t know.” Her teeth worried her lower lip. “I still need help—yours or someone else’s.”

“Mine,” he said quickly, not recognizing the sharp emotion that sliced through him as jealousy.

“Yours,” Ariane agreed. With him, at least, she would know just where she stood.

“Even though I’m the big, bad wolf.” A corner of his mouth lifted.

“But I’m not Little Red Riding Hood.” She smiled, regaining her confidence now that she had seen that this time he had been as moved as she. Surely this had been only a random moment where they had unwittingly gotten under each other’s skin. “Nor one of those imprudent sheep.”

“And the other?” he pressed.

His gaze was so serious, so intense that she felt the dangerous breath lessness return. It occurred to her that perhaps the moment had not been such a random one after all, but she pushed the thought away, unwilling to believe it.

“And here I thought you were a gambler, Ariane. A risk taker,” Chris goaded, the urgent beat of his heart at odds with his flippant words. “A chance,” he said softly. “That’s all I’m asking for.” His voice lowered, grew huskier. “Surely you would not deny a man a chance.”

Ariane’s head made one more attempt to remind her that she was a reasonable person who had never made a decision without carefully weighing both sides of an issue. A sensible person who had never taken a risk that could not be calculated. But now her heart was pounding so madly, so loudly that she heard nothing else.

“All right, Monsieur Blanchard. A bargain. You play the suitor and in return I shall give you a chance.” She lifted her small hand against his triumphant smile. “But not a chance to seduce me. That is just a prettier word for the strong forcing their will on the weak.”

“Then just what is it that you are offering me?”

She took a deep breath and ignored the feeling that she was making a terrible mistake.

“I am offering you the chance to persuade me that a taste of that pleasure you guaranteed personally is an experience not to be missed.”

Because the flare of excitement was strong, he wanted to reach for her, touch her. Because it was too strong, he did not. He had never been a man to be ruled by desire, but for the first time in his life he understood the true temptation of a woman.

“That sounds fair enough.”

“How good of you to think so, Monsieur Blanchard.”

When she held out her hand to him, not languidly as women present their hand to be bowed over or kissed, but thrust straight out like a man’s, Chris’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.

“Is the custom of sealing a bargain with a handshake unknown in California?” she demanded, feeling foolish with her hand thrust out in front of her.

“Of course not” Belatedly, he took her hand in a firm grip. “Forgive me. I have never made a bargain with a lady before.” He grinned wickedly. “At least not a bargain like this one.”

“Monsieur—”

Chris shook his head. “Why don’t we put Monsieur Blanchard to rest? Or don’t you think that we are well enough acquainted for you to call me by my given name?”

“I don’t think—”

“Say it.” Suddenly it was important to him to hear her say his name. Not merely important, but crucial, as if that would, in some odd way, turn a bargain made half in jest into a promise. At the moment it eluded him why he should find promises so desirable, when he had always assiduously avoided them.

Still holding her hand, he took a step and then another until they stood so close together that his body pushed her crinoline back so that her skirt billowed behind her. So close that he could feel the light, tempting press of her body against his.

“Say my name, Ariane.”