Nix tapped her fingers on Robin’s chest nervously, leaning in to whisper, “What exactly are the men here to find tonight, Robin?”
His face turned to her and though she couldn’t see behind his mask, the sudden tightening around his eyes made her worry. “You’ll know soon enough.”
Swaying with him in time to the stirring crescendo of violin strings, Nix tried so hard to ignore the feel of his strong hands clamped onto her waist. The smell of his body—masculine and spicy. The hypnotizing way he moved he moved them across the dance floor. She wasn’t a great dancer, never had been. She totally busted the myth wide open that all Latinas had rhythm encoded into their DNA. Nix had two left feet and was as clunky as an ogre trying to do a reel, but in his arms, it was like she floated on clouds. Like her feet never even touched the ground. He moved so seamlessly she had no choice but to follow.
His thumb pressed into the base of her spine, and she was so aware of it. Aware of how each step they took shifted the pressure just slightly. It was like a wash of current zipping down between her thighs with each twirl, each stride.
Each breath was a struggle. “Why do you keep me in the dark?” she asked low. “You’re the only master who ever has. Everyone tells me what they want. What they need. And yet you—”
“Me what?” His voice was thick, but his touch was lethal. Now it wasn’t just his thumb, but his entire palm laying flat on her back. His fingers teasingly brushing the tender area just before where back met bum.
It was all Nix could do not to purr like a cat in heat.
Aware of all the eyes around them, of Robin’s very precarious position, she didn’t jump out of his arms, or give into her need by pressing in even tighter, molding their lower halves together just so that she could get that friction she desperately needed.
“You’ve gone rigid in my arms, pet.” He moved his palm up and down so damn slowly that she couldn’t help but give a little mewl in response.
“Stop touching me like that,” she snapped. Angry with him. With herself. But most especially with their situation. Until Robin wished his final wish she’d be tortured by her want of him.
She might not be able to see it, but she’d bet good money that he was biting his lower lip right now. His eyes were starting to glow.
“Your eyes, Robin.”
He closed them, but still held her unbelievably tight. They were no longer dancing and now couples were beginning to bump into them, giving them glares of disgust.
“Off the floor if ye’re not dancing,” someone snapped.
But Robin wouldn’t move. Now he was the one turning rigid.
“Charming?” she said it softly. They were still playing the roles they’d played when he’d bought her the gown the other day. She touched his sleeve. Even through the thick layer of fabric, she felt the warmth of his flesh beneath her fingertips.
Grabbing her hand, he twined their fingers together and pulled her off the floor to one side. “Punch?” he asked, his voice sounded normal again, and his eyes were an intense blue, but no longer so electric.
Feeling like she was suffocating beneath her mask, she slipped it off and took a deep breath, running her hand across her sweaty brow. “Yes, please.”
He stared at her, and once again she was back in that bubble, that strange place where reality melted away until all she saw, smelled, and heard was him.
“Goddess…Marian,” he said haltingly, as if for a moment he’d forgotten her pseudo name, “when you look like that.” His thumb traced her burning cheek.
Feeling bold and daring, knowing she played with fire, but unable to resist the siren’s call of him, she stepped into his body. Robin didn’t move back as she’d expected him to.
“You make me forget that this is all a—”
Suddenly the night erupted with the violent blast of trumpets. Jerked out of her thoughts, Nixie latched on to her chest with trembling fingers, moving away from him. From the dangers of what Robin meant to her sanity and looked up, and for just a moment she caught a flash of moving shadow that made her heart leap.
She quickly tied her mask back on.
Narrowing her gaze she peered at the corner of the massive chamber room, and then shook her head feeling ridiculous and even slightly crazy. For a second she could have sworn that large swath of darkness must have been John, but though she didn’t dare blink, nothing budged.
A throng of bodies began to move slowly forward toward the wooden stage festooned with garland and red and white ribbons.
A red carpet was being rolled out by two youngish looking squires—one of who had a shock of bright red hair, the other blond, wearing similar outfits—but there was something about their movements, their mannerisms that seemed oddly familiar.
The final ringing note of the trumpets hung suspended in the air for several quivering seconds, before a man wearing royal blue tights, a hunter-green shirt and a jaunty feathered cap, boomed, “His Royal Highness, Crispin the Lion-Hearted!”