Lord Savage by Mia Gabriel Page A

pale
     blue eyes with the thick, dark lashes.
    He was such a striking, intoxicatingly male figure that all words and thoughts flew
     from my head, and I could do nothing but stare at him.
    “There’s no sin to looking at the stars, Eve,” he said. “Even a beggar may look at
     a king, and the moon as well.”
    Slowly he began to cross the room. He unfastened his tie, tugging it from beneath
     the starched collar, and let it fall to the floor without a thought. He shrugged his
     shoulders free of his coat and dropped that, too, followed by his white brocade waistcoat,
     leaving a soft, costly trail of discarded black and white behind him on the carpet.
    I made a gulping little laugh, so much like a nervous schoolgirl that I winced. “I’m
     hardly a beggar, my lord. You know that. But the stars certainly are beautiful tonight.”
    He stopped, and frowned.
    “Oh, Eve,” he said softly, pulling the top pearl stud of his shirt to open the collar.
     “You’ve forgotten again, haven’t you?”
    “Forgotten?” I repeated uneasily, slipping from the chair to stand with my back to
     the window. “What have I forgotten?”
    “Who you are,” he said, sounding disappointed and almost sad. “Who I am.”
    “Oh, that Game foolishness,” I said hurriedly, remembering now. “I didn’t think it
     mattered when we were alone, my lord. I thought it was only for when we were downstairs,
     with the others.”
    “‘That Game foolishness’?” He tipped his head to one side, his frown now one of puzzlement.
     “The Game’s hardly foolish, Eve. At least it isn’t to me.”
    “That is, it’s not to me, either,” I said quickly. I felt off-balance and uncertain,
     and unsure of what sort of answer he was expecting. “If it were, I, ah, I wouldn’t
     be here.”
    “Very well,” he said. He raised his chin a fraction, to unfasten another stud on his
     shirt, his gaze never leaving mine. “Then I’ll forgive your forgetfulness, and permit
     you to begin again, as an Innocent. Will you agree to that, Eve?”
    I swallowed, nervously smoothing a stray curl of my hair behind my ear. How could
     I think, with him undressing like this? As he took the onyx links with the gold snakes
     from his cuffs, his shirt fell open nearly to the waist, revealing that he wore no
     undershirt beneath, the way most gentlemen would. Instead there was only a tantalizing
     glimpse of his bare chest and the whorls of black hair upon it.
    I’d never seen a gentleman’s chest like this, not once.
    “Eve?” he asked again, working the last of the onyx cuff links free. “If you do not
     wish what I can give you, then you are free to—”
    “No, Master,” I said breathlessly. “I wish it.”
    “You will obey me in all matters?” He tossed the shirt’s studs in his palm like a
     gambler’s dice. “You will trust me completely?”
    “Yes, Master,” I said quickly, as much to convince myself as him. “Yes.”
    “I am glad.” He turned away and dropped the shirt studs and cuff links with a clatter
     into a porcelain dish on the mantel. With his back to me, he poured himself a brandy
     from the decanter on the nearby table.
    He didn’t offer the wine to me. Not that I wanted any, but I wasn’t accustomed to
     not being considered, the way a gentleman always did with a lady.
    But then I wasn’t a lady any longer, not to him. I’d just agreed once again to be
     an Innocent, and the realization was at once both exciting and daunting. What would
     he expect me to do? What desires of his would I be obliged to fulfill?
    And what in turn could I expect of him?
    “So here we are, my pretty Innocent,” he said, coming slowly toward me with the cut-crystal
     tumbler in hand. “We’ll have a week to learn each other’s ways, won’t we?”
    Instinctively I took a step back, away from him, bumping against the cool glass of
     the window. Foolish, foolish, I scolded myself. I needed to be bold and confident with him, not skittish
     as a cat.