The instant the waiters removed the warming covers, he gruffly ordered, “Leave us.”
Freddy wet her lips and desperately tried to think of something to say to this strange new Dal whom she had never seen before and didn’t know. And it occurred to her that perhaps she seemed as strange to him, gowned and coiffed and perfumed and not the woman he was accustomed to seeing either.
She moistened her lips with the wine and inspected her dinner. “It looks wonderful,” she murmured, knowing she was too nervous to eat a bite.
Dal gazed at the ceiling for a moment before he cleared his throat and touched his tie. “ ‘All my desire, all my delight should be, Her to enjoy, her to unite to me.’ ” He turned his empty wineglass between his fingers, running a caressing glance down her throat to the swell of soft flesh curving above the low scoop of her bodice.
Freddy swallowed, then blurted the first quotation that sprang to her mind. “ ‘Fie on sinful fantasy! Fie on lust and luxury! Lust is but a bloody fire, Kindled with unchaste desire.’ ”
Smiling, Dal supplied Shakespeare’s next lines, “ ‘Fed in heart, whose flames aspire, as thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.’ ”
“ ‘Pinch him, fairies, mutually; Pinch him for his villainy.’ ”
He laughed, then spoke softly, “ ‘There is a garden in her face, Where roses and white lilies grow; A heavenly paradise is that place, Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow.’ ”
Astonishment thrilled her. She could not believe these words were falling from his lips, couldn’t believe they were trading flowery bits of poetry. She liked it, but… it was also a bit overwhelming. She couldn’t quite make the transition from herding cattle yesterday to being romanced today. “Dal,” she whispered, looking into his hot gaze. “What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to seduce you. Trying to do it right this time,” he said simply, letting his eyes go soft in the candlelight. “You’re so beautiful, Freddy, so lovely.”
So was he. Candlelight warmed the strong bronzed angles of his face, played across his fingers and the backs of his hands. His eyes had not left her since he returned to the room. Freddy was aware of his body, remembered the iron strength of his thighs and his hard flat stomach. But it was his steady gaze that made her go weak inside, made her feel as if her bones were slowly melting. His gaze turned alternately soft then hard with desire, gentled by the words on his tongue then heated with speculation.
Her own body responded with a strange restless tension. She felt damp and overly warm, shivery with nerves and anticipation. Picking up her fork, she pushed at the items on her plate, not seeing them. And she listened as he quoted love sonnets to her, feeling her cheeks grow hot when the poetry skirted close to the subject uppermost in her mind, lovemaking.
Behind him, she glimpsed the bedspread, pale against evening shadows. The music drifting in the opened window was sweet and longing. Tension grew in the pit of her stomach and spread through her body. Her lips trembled and so did her fingertips. When she looked at him across the candle flames, she saw only his eyes and his lips, heard only the words he spoke to her, and she decided if he didn’t kiss her soon, she would faint from the need to feel his mouth on hers.
As if he’d read her mind, he stood and took her hand, guiding her to her feet. Standing so close that her skirt wrapped his legs, he brought his fingertips to her face and traced the shape of her cheekbones, her jaw-line, her lips. She closed her eyes and swayed as his fingers brushed down the arch of her throat and came to rest on the tops of her breasts. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. And when his mouth finally came down on hers, she released a sound of gratitude that was almost a sob.
She would have grabbed him and returned his kiss with force and passion, but he wouldn’t permit it. To her frustration, he eased back, keeping his kiss light, holding her at the waist to control her movement. Instead of roughly claiming her mouth as he had done before, he teased her with light kisses across her lips, her eyelids, her temples. But gradually his hands on her waist brought her closer and tighter against his hips, letting her feel the rock-hard state of his arousal.