“About the blackmail or about how bad you are at it?”
“Both.”
“Done. And I’d appreciate it if you kept my secrets as well.”
Her nose scrunched up. “But why? You should be proud.”
He shrugged as well as he could with one shoulder resting on the bed. “I am not a man who shares himself easily. There are things I’ve done and things I will still do that I may never share with you. Or anyone.”
Her body tensed. “But why?”
“It’s nothing nefarious. I suppose I’d rather the world scorn me for what it thinks is true instead of what is really true.”
“You talk riddles, Tobias Blake. But you’re in luck. I’m rather good at keeping others’ secrets.”
He kissed her on the nose. Then he kissed her lips.
Her moan shot right through him, tensing every muscle.
What he was about to do went against his code of honor, but the fact that they would be wed in a month’s time allayed his guilt. He moved his hand to her shoulder then her neck and then cupped her cheek and lifted his head to gaze upon her flushed face.
“We’ll keep each other’s secrets from now on, Maggie.” He lowered his mouth to her lips but did not yet touch her. “Including this one.”
* * *
This kiss was entirely unlike the kiss they’d shared in the garden. Tobias was such an amalgam of disparate qualities Maggie never knew which would come to the fore. The playful friend? The intense defender? The sharp-edged and serious-eyed intellectual?
All of them seemed to step to the side for this new Tobias—the passionate lover. Because that was what he was doing—making love to her mouth with emotion that ran deep and into every inch of her body, piercing her with every thrust of his fingers into her hair and every thrust of his tongue into her mouth.
She gasped at the unexpected entry and half expected him to stop, laugh, and tell her he was only joking with that little bit.
He didn’t. He stroked her tongue with his and the more he did it, the more she realized this was no joke. This was beautifully serious. She touched him back, returning his kisses thrust for thrust until they tangled together in a brilliant battle.
She explored the sinewy strength of his neck and the broad muscles of his shoulders before running her palms flat along his back. She traced her fingers up his spine and tangled her hands in the silky curls at the nape of his neck.
He shivered, pulled her banyan to the side and smoothed her shift against her breast. “Silk,” he said, his gaze never leaving her chest. “I approve.”
She’d thought of his preference for silk when she’d put the shift on before sneaking to his bedroom. “Good.”
His hand moved over her breast and his thumb dragged slowly across her nipple. The friction of the silk against her skin, the warmth of his caress, shot through Maggie like lightning. She’d never felt such sensations before. He did it again and again before gently pinching her nipple between forefinger and thumb and rolling it within the silk.
She moaned.
“That’s my Maggie.” His voice was deep, husky, scratchier than usual. It would have been unrecognizable if her body didn’t know it on a primal level. That made no sense, but she no longer existed in a world of logic, but in a world of sensation. And Tobias was the mage king who crafted that world’s sensual delights.
When his hand left her breast, she cried out, reached to bring him back, but his hand had already alighted elsewhere, lower, and she found this caress, too, had its own pleasure. He skimmed her outer thigh with his fingertips, up and down, up and down, sketching patterns into her skin until his hand flattened, smoothed around her leg, and ventured across her inner thigh. He squeezed once, then his fingers found her sex and stroked, parted, plunged.
She gasped, her hips bucking off the bed.
He broke their kiss and looked down at her with wide eyes. “My God, Maggie. It’s not possible. How can you be so ready for me? Do you even know what that means?” His eyes clouded over. “Or have you had lessons in love before?”
She scowled, annoyed at his proprietary tone. Let him interpret that as he wished. She had kissed other men, but she did not wish to speak of them at the moment, not when all she could do was wiggle against him, begging without words for him to continue his explorations. “Do you mean my body is prepared for you to enter me?”
His eyes widened further. She’d not thought it possible. She lunged up and, accessing all her courage, kissed him on the nose. “Boop,” she said. “You have a very boop-able nose. Has anyone ever told you that?” She fell back into the mattress.
His smile bloomed like a flower, and it spread tendrils into her very heart.
He surveyed her with a hungry gaze. “As much as I adore you in silk …” He pushed her shift up her body and pulled it over her head, leaving her bare as a marble statue.
