Free The Spymaster's Lady by Joanna Bourne

poison like a toad and you believe him for reasons wholly incomprehensible. You kidnap me into Normandy for nothing. You endanger me and yourself with this mad insistence to—”
    â€œTurn around and look at me. I’m damned tired of talking to your back.”
    â€œYou, I do not find attractive or interesting. In fact, I wish you would go away altogether.”
    Adamant hands gripped her and turned her, without pain, but very, very firmly. She kept her head lowered, concealing her face from him in the dark.
    â€œYou’re thinking about fighting me. Don’t. Believe me, little fox, you wouldn’t like what I’d do to you. Don’t make me show you how thoroughly you’re trapped.”
    â€œTrapped? But yes, I admit it freely. I am easy to snare these days. A dolt like Henri can do it.”
    â€œI haven’t found it particularly easy. I’m changing the rules of this game we play.”
    â€œI do not play games against Grey of the British Service. I would not dare.”
    â€œYou’re playing one now.”
    Where the many nerves ran in the joining at her shoulder, his fingers explored, drawing idle, poignant circles, which entirely paralyzed her. Then he slid, smooth and slow, down her arm. How powerless it made her feel to learn his hands could secure themselves around her upper arm like large bracelets. At her elbow he found a great sensitivity.
    Fighting points. He caressed the fighting points, lingering till she shivered with it. She had never thought of this obvious truth. At the weak places where one strikes an opponent, the nerves run exposed and vulnerable and receptive. Receptive to any touch. He knew that. It was disheartening to encounter so much admirable expertise in an opponent.
    She squeezed her eyes closed and wished for the hundredth time she could see his expression and guess what he was going to do to her. Nothing so simple as to hurt her.
    The rumble of his voice vibrated across her skin. “That shirt’s more erotic than I would have believed possible. To see my shirt wrapped around you and know there’s nothing…but you…underneath it.” He plucked at the fabric, considering it with his fingertips. “You take the prerogatives of a longtime lover when you help yourself to my clothes. I should be disarmed. Clever Annique.”
    â€œI am not so clever,” she muttered, being sincere.
    His hand traveled to rest over her heart. “You have exactly the right number of buttons undone. I congratulate you. One less, and you’d be playing the timid virgin.” He slipped two fingers into the shirt, tugged briefly, and left the top button loosed behind him. “Virgin isn’t a convincing role for you.”
    He could say such things to a woman he was going to take to his bed. She could not reason with him when he was like this. She could do nothing but stand and listen to him and tremble everywhere.
    He stroked downward and found the next button. “Too many unfastened, and there’s no challenge to it.” He slid it open. “Men enjoy challenges.”
    The beat of her heart shook her whole body. Did he know she was growing excited for him, at that place between her legs where he would want to pleasure himself? It was most probable he did.
    He set another button free. He would have her naked soon. Her plan of reasoning with him did not seem to be working.
    â€œA man itches to peel you, veil by veil, laying your secrets bare, opening you up to reveal mysteries.”
    Her body was not mysterious in that place he so poetically discussed, merely hot and anxious. She squeezed herself together, which did not help, but indeed made things worse. She could not stop herself doing it either, again and again, so matters grew progressively more complicated for her. “Me, I have no mysteries. You delude yourself.”
    â€œIt would be so easy to lure the honey out of you. All I have to do is this…”