Page 54 of Dark Gambit: The Play

"Was it now?" He cupped the back of her head. "Do you want to give it another go to make sure?"

"Are you offering?"

"What does it look like?"

"Do you always answer a question with another question?"

He loved to see her spunk and humor come back.

Sofia was a positive person by nature, the glass-half-full type, and if not for him giving her the cold shoulder, she would have weathered her ordeal better. Instead of being the rock of support she'd needed, he'd added to her sorrow and anxiety.

"Let's check out that four-poster and see what other goodies we can find in there. But this time, I'm tying you to the bed."

Her smile wilted. "I don't like those things. I've seen real implements of torture being used to punish Kra-ell who dared to step out of line, and it was horrible. I will never associate those things with anything pleasurable."

Talk about a cold shower.

"Then no restraints for you. I will just give you a little taste of the torment you inflicted on me. I will torture you with an abundance of pleasure."

Her smile returned. "I didn't say that about the restraints. Just about the flogger and the crop and whatever else is stored in that footboard."

"We don't need any of that." He pulled her into his arms, rose to his feet, and carried her to the bedroom. "I laundered the sheets, so we will have a fresh bed to play in."

It wasn't the most romantic thing to say, or the sexiest, but Sofia seemed to like it.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, she tilted her face up and kissed him. "That's very sweet of you. I love the smell of fresh bedding."

40

SOFIA

As Marcel walked with Sofia into the bedroom, he didn't head toward the bed as she'd expected. Instead, he carried her into the bathroom and set her down on the bench in the shower.

They'd done a long walk on the beach and back, so a shower wasn't a bad idea, but it wasn't her idea of sexy reconciliation.

What did she know, though?

Her experience was limited, not just in practice but even in general knowledge. The romance novels she read were tame and sweet, and nothing overly sexually adventurous happened in them. Most of the love scenes were the fade-to-black kind without any explicit details.

"What's your plan?" she asked as he knelt at her feet.

"I'm going to treat you to something special." He took one shoe and sock off, tossed them on the floor outside the shower, and repeated that with the other.

Fearing that her feet didn't smell all that fresh, Sofia's cheeks heated with embarrassment, and she pulled her feet away from him even though he didn't look as if he had smelled anything unpleasant. In fact, given the glow in his eyes, he was excited about what he was planning to do.

"You still didn't tell me why your eyes glow," she said to divert his attention from her feet.

"They glow when I get excited." He lifted onto his knees, pushed his thumbs into the elastic of her leggings, and pulled them down along with her panties, baring her from the waist down. "Now the top." He reached for the hem of her T-shirt and tugged it up, urging her to lift her arms.

When she did, he pulled it off and tossed it on top of the leggings. Her bra was unceremoniously taken off next, and before she knew what was going on, his mouth was on her nipple, licking, sucking, and making her mindless with pleasure. When he switched to the other one, all thoughts about glowing eyes on a human receded to the corner of her mind where she stored other unexplained mysteries that needed further investigation.

"I'm sorry. I just couldn't help myself." He smirked as he toed off his shoes.

As Marcel got undressed so fast that she couldn't track the movements, Sofia added that to the list of mysteries to investigate later. Right now, she was enthralled by the beauty of Marcel's male body.

She'd seen him naked before and had gotten very familiar with his manhood, but seeing it again, fully erect and standing straight from his hips right in front of her face, she couldn't help but reach for it and give it a kiss hello.

With a groan, Marcel pulled away. "Save the thought." He reached for the handheld shower head and turned the faucet on.