Free My Lady Enslaved by Shirl Anders Page B

looked deep into Raven’s ebony eyes, wanting desperately to ask him what he meant by the endearment and if he could possibly . . . yet, just then he slid a strawberry between her lips. “Bite,” he murmured with a steamy sensual look in his eyes. When she had delicately bitten the tip off he'd turned the berry to his own mouth and finished it with a slow bite. His other hand was intimately cupping one cheek of her bottom through the silk of her dress as he reached forward to pick up his crystal glass of champagne. “Now a sip of this,” he murmured, pressing the cool edge of the crystal glass to her slightly swollen lips. She complied, watching him over the edge of the glass feeling the light bubbles tingle her nose as she took a sip. He was so handsome, . . .no, perhaps virile was a better word or compelling and thoroughly masculine.
    He reached for another strawberry, and then he asked her completely out of the blue. “Why was the package empty, Rosebud? Where were you taking an empty package?”
    Chloe blinked slowly and instinctively bit into the strawberry Raven pressed to her lips. She did not know what to say! Raven did not look angry, he looked sensual and relaxed. She hated to lie and she did not want to pretend to be Lia. But she was as surprised as he would have been that the package was empty. She had been used again! But to what purpose? She was so terrible at spying games of intrigue.
    “You would not believe me,” she whispered as she clutched her hands in her lap looking down at them. “It would make you angry, and I am here with you . . . Yours. What difference could it m-m . . .” The champagne glass was pressed to her lips, halting her words.
    “Sip it, Rosebud,” Raven murmured. And she did. “And,” he said softly. “I want you to tell me a fable and I promise that I will try not to become angry.” He paused setting the champagne glass aside and plucked another strawberry from the china bowl in front of him. “And I will tell you, Rosebud, that before I met you I always had great control.”
    Fable? Did Raven wish to believe her? Was this his way of saying it? No, Chloe thought, Raven was not sure himself, but perhaps he was torn. That lifted her heart like nothing since getting Sebastian back. Plus it appeared that she made him lose his tightly held control and he had not meant his anger or brute force . . . he meant his passion. His passion for her.
    Impulsively she brought her arms around his neck and laid her cheek on his shoulder. He was so warm and he was a bit startled that she would cuddle with him so. He liked to be the aggressor, yet he relaxed and stroked her nape with gentle fingers.
    She began to talk slowly. “The person who took my baby told me that I must take the package to Roe Street at midnight. I was told there would be a man there to claim it. I did not know what was in the package and it was wrapped when I received it. Just as you saw it. I-I did not want to know what was in it. I only wanted Sebastian back and the person who took him from me is vicious and evil. I know this . . . I have always known this.”
    Chloe paused, rubbing her cheek against Raven’s lapel, gathering her courage. She could not read his reaction this way, he only felt safe and warm. If he was angry with disbelief yet, he was hiding it. His hand at her nape was still gently circling. “I am not witless,” she whispered. “I know that I was being used. I thought it must be because I . . . I, l-look so much like the evil person that took my son . . .” She clutched Raven’s neck. “I thought whoever came to claim the package might think that I was she, and that was why I was sent. Yet now that I know the package was empty . . . It could be so many things. I could never fathom the reasons this person would do the things that they do. There is so much subterfuge and lies . . . But I-I had to get Sebastian back even if it was dangerous. I had no choice. This was my only hope and-and this