The Scoundrel's Lover by Jess Michaels

his office, downstairs in the playrooms, out in the damn street if it pleased them? He was overcome by the desire for her and he cupped her face to draw her closer.
    He felt her breath on his mouth, the flutter of her body as she molded to him even closer. He was about to claim her lips when there was a sharp rap on the door behind them.
    Annabelle let out a little cry and wrestled from his arms so suddenly that she nearly deposited herself in the floor next to his desk. She covered her pink cheeks with her shaking hands, refusing to meet his gaze.
    With a scowl, he turned toward the door. “What?” he barked out.
    The door opened slowly and the guard from the bottom of the stairs slowly poked his head inside, his face pale as if he expected punishment.
    “I’m sorry to interrupt, sir, but Mr. Flynn has arrived.”
    Marcus squeezed his eyes shut. It was too easy to get caught up in his ever-mounting desire for Annabelle and forget she hadn’t come here for him, for whatever heat was developing between them. She was here for her brother and he could see, as he turned toward her, that she would not be deterred from her mission to save a man Marcus feared did not want to be saved.
     

     
    Annabelle repositioned her mask and tried to keep up with Marcus’s long strides as he led her across the main hall of the club. Around her, the passions and pleasures continued, but his purposeful stride didn’t seem to indicate he had any interest in them.
    She couldn’t understand why. The moans and flashes of flesh from the corner of her eye made her own body edgy and wet. But earlier he had seemed to have great interest in her, so it couldn’t be that he was a monk. It was all infinitely confusing and arousing in ways she did not wish to be aroused.
    He produced a key from his pocket and swiftly unlocked a narrow door next to the hall. Without saying a word, he clasped her hand and drew her into a dark passageway, then closed and locked the door behind him.
    In the dark, her other senses were obliterated, and she stopped breathing as she fought to control the panic that suddenly rose up in her chest.
    “What are you—” she began, but he spun around and lifted two rough fingers to her lips. She had a very sudden and powerful urge to lick those fingers.
    “Shhh,” he said, his voice low. “Let your eyes adjust and I’ll show you.”
    She pulled away from his distracting hand and squeezed her eyes shut. After a slow count to ten, she opened them again and found that the hall wasn’t so dim anymore. There were small slivers of light all along its length, though she couldn’t understand their source. They weren’t candles or lamps.
    “Ready?” Marcus asked, still whispering.
    “Yes, I suppose,” she said, hesitant when she still didn’t understand in the slightest what they were doing here. He could do almost anything to her.
    Which should have been far less pleasing a notion than it was.
    He caught her hand once more, his rough fingers stroking over hers, and drew her down the hall. After a few steps, he stopped and gently slid a small portion of the wall away. A column of bright light cascaded into the hall, and she gasped.
    It was a peephole, leading into one of the chambers on the other side of the hall. That explained the small lights. There were half a dozen of the peepholes lining the wall, and even when they were closed a small portion of the light from the room they revealed came around the opening.
    “Mar—”
    He held a finger to his lips to signal her to be silent and merely motioned toward the room. She gritted her teeth and stepped up to look inside.
    There was a large table in the room, and at it sat five men…and her brother. Crispin faced the place where she stood, but seemed oblivious to her presence as he laughed and dealt out a round of cards to his companions.
    It was rare to see him unguarded and…well, sober anymore. She drank in the sight of his still-bright face and the smile that could