Frustration shone in her blue eyes. “I don’t understand why you must be so stubborn!”
Kell steeled himself against his own frustration, wishing Raven would just go away and leave him in peace. Her very nearness was a temptation. Yet if he wanted her gone, he would have to drive her away. But how, other than physical threats…?
Assessing her, he responded to the devil prompting him. “There is only one thing I might want from you, vixen.”
She looked taken aback. “Oh? And what is that?”
“Perhaps you can guess.” He reached out to brush her breast through her gown, making her start in alarm. “Carnal relations. You can fulfill my carnal needs.”
Her sharp intake of breath was supremely satisfying.
“I see I have shocked you,” Kell murmured. “How entertaining to render you speechless.”
Raven ignored his baiting, however, and searched his face, her gaze both serious and wary. “Do you truly want relations between us?”
Kell felt his loins pulse at the prospect. Too clearly he remembered the tight, glorious fit of his hard flesh in the hot, wet softness of hers. “No,” he denied swiftly. “I’m perfectly satisfied with our mock marriage, with neither of us demanding or expecting anything from the other.”
“But will you at least consider taking Dare up on his offer? I know it wounds your pride to consider accepting help-”
“My pride is none of your concern.”
Her lips pressed together for a moment, but then she narrowed her eyes, the picture of determination. “Very well, then. I have a proposition for you.”
Kell gave her a measuring look. “Why would I be interested in any proposition of yours?”
“Because you are a gamester, and you can’t resist a wager. I will gamble with you for your agreement, Kell. A few throws of the dice. If I can roll seven or eleven three times in a row, you will allow Wolverton to help you.”
“And if not?”
“Then I will never bother you about the subject again. I will stand back and let your good name be ruined and your club destroyed with my blessing.”
Kell eyed her in speculation, wondering what she was up to.
“Are you afraid I might win?” Raven taunted, a bright challenge in her eyes.
He wanted to tell her to go to the devil, but curiosity got the better of him. He pushed the dice box toward her, then leaned indolently against the table, crossing his arms over his chest. “Go ahead then, roll.”
Shaking her head, she opened her fist, showing a pair of dice. With a smug look, she juggled them a time or two and tossed the bits of ivory on the table, rolling a combination of eleven.
When Kell raised an eyebrow, Raven smiled serenely.
The second throw was just as successful. A seven. She gathered the dice and started to throw again.
His hand reached out to close over hers, staying her. Prying open her fingers, Kell captured the dice, hefting them in his hand.
Understanding dawned, as did anger. “These are weighted,” he said harshly.
“I never claimed they weren’t,” Raven responded, her own tone dulcet. “You merely assumed I would use your dice.”
Kell took a step toward her, reaching up to wrap his fingers around her throat in a gentle vise. “I don’t tolerate cheating in my establishment.”
A fleeting smile wreathed her mouth. “I never doubted it for a moment. But we must make everyone else see that.”
Praying for patience, Kell shut his eyes. “I’ve been gulled like the veriest greenhorn, haven’t I?”
“I’m afraid so.” Pulling his fingers from her throat, Raven eased from his grasp. “But I cheated for a good cause.”
Seeing the mirth trembling on her lips, Kell choked back his own bark of laughter and cursed instead. “Where in hell did you get a pair of loaded dice? No, don’t tell me. O’Malley.”
“Yes. He taught me to play cards and shoot dice.”
“And pistols as well,” Kell said darkly, remembering.
“Well, yes. He contributed a great deal to my education.”
“Your education was damned peculiar for a young lady.”
“I won’t argue with you on that point. My mother would have been appalled had she known.”
She took the dice from him and threw again. Another seven. “I believe I just won,” she said, her tone unwisely triumphant.
But Kell wasn’t willing to let her escape so easily. Grasping her arm, he turned Raven to face him and, with his body, crowded her against the hazard table, bracing his arms on either side of her to prevent her escape.
“Do you know what I do to cheats?” he asked, his voice a silken menace.
“No, what?” she said breathlessly.
His gaze dropped to her mouth. He wanted to shake her. He wanted to kiss her and wipe that knowing gleam from her incredible blue eyes. “I throw them out on their ears.”
“Would you really be so cruel to me?”
At the laughter in her question, a dozen thoughts rushed through his mind; foremost was how badly he wanted her. It would be so simple to lift her onto the table and drive himself home between her parted thighs…
Without volition, he reached up to trail his knuckles along the delicate curve of Raven’s jaw. Instantly he heard her breath catch, saw her lips part in surprise at the heated tension that suddenly sizzled between them.
Riveted, Raven stared back at him. Kell’s unexpected caress had made her stomach muscles contract, made her nipples stiffen. The feel of his hard, powerful body pressing against her own aroused a yearning ache between her thighs…
He bent closer, his eyes dark as polished onyx, his lips hovering above hers. She trembled at the warm breath dazing her senses, fearing how she would respond if Kell decided to kiss her, wondering if she could possibly deny him.
But she wasn’t required to make a decision, for suddenly he gritted his teeth and stepped back, putting a safe distance between them, his features totally shuttered.
“Go. Now,” Kell demanded. “Get out before I think of something even more cruel to do to you.”
Raven wisely decided to take his advice. Shakily she picked up her dice and fled the room.
Emma was in the entry hall, apparently waiting to say farewell. Raven exerted herself to respond calmly as she accepted her cloak from the doorman.
She had turned to go when she felt Kell’s presence. When she glanced back, she saw he had moved to stand beside Emma, one hand resting lightly on the blond-haired woman’s shoulder.
Raven felt her stomach twist with a different kind of awareness; that intimate gesture was one of a man toward his lover.
She drew a painful breath. It stung to think that the beautiful hostess was the one claiming Kell’s attentions at night while she lay alone in her bed.
Pasting a frigid smile on her mouth, though, she made a dignified exit, her head held high.
She stirred restlessly in the twilight between waking and sleeping, seeking release from the growing wildness inside her. Her pirate’s worshiping mouth was on her naked breast, roughly tender, his lips suckling her taut, straining nipple. She quivered with her quickened breathing as his rasping tongue laved in a fiery circling.
Below she felt the brush of his fingers stroking possessively against her moist cleft, rimming the slick, honeyed entrance to her body. She arched, wanting him, aching for him.
In response, his caressing lips left off tormenting her bare breasts and moved lower, his open mouth seeking her sex, his breath hot on her exposed, sensitive flesh. She released a choked moan of pleasure as he probed the swollen, aching folds with his tongue.
When she began to writhe, he pressed his face harder between her legs, both hands gripping the curves of her buttocks to hold her to him while his tongue licked and stabbed her with fire, making her burn with desire.
Her body clenched unbearably, her fingers clutching in his hair.
Yet he refused to satisfy her. Pressing one last tantalizing kiss to the core of her, he rose above her. His face was shadowed, but she could feel his intensity, his burning sensuality as he stroked the velvet hardness of his arousal against her.