One Wicked Sin by Nicola Cornick

tempting. Lottie shivered a little with nerves and anticipation.
    “You see this as a challenge,” she said.
    Ethan smiled. “Perhaps there is an element of that in it,” he said. His smile faded. His gaze keen and hard rested on her. “Make no mistake, Lottie,” he said. “I bought a mistress and now I want what I have paid for.” Heat kindled in his eyes. He ran one finger down the curve of her arm, making her shiver. “To have to work for the pleasure is quite exciting,” he added. “If you had planned this as a harlot’s trick you could not have read me better. I hate a conquest to be too easy.”
    Another shiver rippled down Lottie’s spine, awareness mingled with apprehension. “How ridiculous,” she said, a little unsteadily, “to need to seduce your mistress. It isn’t too late,” she added quickly, as Ethan bent his head to feather a kiss across her collarbone. “You could find another mistress. One you do not need to coax like a virgin.”
    “It is far too late for that,” Ethan said. He pressed a kiss in the hollow at the base of her throat. She could feel him smiling. Lottie’s pulse raced. She knew Ethan would feel it beating like a trapped bird against his lips. She felt a little faint.
    Ethan released her and stepped back, holding her lightly by the wrists, looking at her. Suddenly Lottie hated the fact that she was standing there in the garish,tasteless gown that had been the first thing she had grabbed to escape Mrs. Tong’s whorehouse. The dress screamed harlotry like a street seller. She stiffened and Ethan released her and gave her a questioning look. There was a smile still in his blue eyes but behind it a flame burned, and she recognized it for desire and felt her wayward heart flutter.
    “It is all right.” He spoke gently. Somehow—how was it possible?—he had read her mind and sensed her distress at the tawdry gown. “We can get rid of it.”
    Lottie’s lips curved into a shaky smile. “How practical you are.”
    He smiled back. “It is a pleasure to be of help.”
    He brushed his hands down her arms, from her shoulders to her elbows, and the dress, running true to form, fell off her like an empty shell. She wore no stays for she had dressed in haste. She heard Ethan’s breath hitch as his gaze fell to her shift. It was her own, a sheer and delicate scrap of silk defiance in the face of Mrs. Tong’s vulgarity and so fine that her nipples showed like a shadow through the material. It also molded the voluptuous roundness of her breasts. Though she was not a tall woman she was built with generous curves and as she had aged she had despaired of the way that all of those curves had sagged slightly as though they were getting tired. She supposed that she could hardly blame her breasts for drooping a little; she was fairly weary of life herself at times.
    Yet Ethan did not seem to dislike the fullness of her figure for he was smiling and the sharp light of desire in his eyes ignited further.
    “Delicious,” he said softly, and Lottie felt a rippleof awareness course through her. She waited for him to remove her shift, but instead he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her again, slow and sure, his lips moving against hers with the gentlest of persuasion until she parted for him and answered him hesitantly, their breath mingling, the touch of his tongue soft against hers. She felt the surge of response in him, the triumph and the need to possess, and for a moment she felt afraid again before he reined in his reaction and drew back. He was breathing a little harder and she could sense the impatience in him and yet he mastered it with iron control.
    She raised her hands so that he could draw her shift off and cast it aside. Then she stood naked before him but for her stockings and shoes. She found she had to turn her face away from his scrutiny. She did not know why this was different from her bravado in the brothel where she had paraded herself barely dressed in the