She was silent then said, “That depends on whether or not you are the danger.”

“You know the answer to that, Celia.”

A slow smile curved her lips. “Then I shall adjust my opinion of Arion’s abilities.”

“You like the danger, my prickly sugarplum.” Gabriel kept her gaze captive as his head bent, and her eyes widened slightly. “Don’t you? Answer me.”

“Yes.” The reluctant murmur seemed torn from her. She bit down on her lip with the admission.

“And this is dangerous for us both, isn’t it?” he asked.

Celia nodded, eyes closing as though that simple act would make it easier to avoid the truth. The scent of her fear, and her arousal, tickled his nose. He was more than likely doomed to hell, but he thought it was the most intoxicating aroma he’d ever encountered. He forced himself not to breathe too deeply of it, certain it would make him do drastic, stupid things.

Gabriel’s lips pressed against the worst of the bruising, soothing any lingering hurt she might have felt. When his mouth gently explored her ankle bone, she moaned. A slow lick of his tongue across the fine bones of the top of her foot pulled a strangled curse from her lips.

“Will you let me show you more, Celia?” His mouth moved over the paper-thin skin stretching across the arch of her foot. He bit down just hard enough, his teeth scoring the sensitive skin until she gasped in mortified pleasure.

“Y-yes,” she surrendered with a low cry.

He hummed his approval against her flesh, his mouth moving higher. From the arch of her foot. To the demarcation of her ankle. Along the smoothness of her calf. His lips were at her knee now, her skirts crushed and shoved upward as his mouth traveled a leisurely path of sin. “There’s my good girl. I’ll show you everything, if you allow me.”

Celia’s palm cupped Gabriel’s cheek, momentarily stealing his attention away from the mysteriously sweet flesh of her inner knees. From his lower position on the footstool, he glanced up at the interruption.

“Who are you, Gabriel Rose? How have you captured me under your spell so easily?”

Celia’s gaze bored into Gabriel’s. Her beautiful dark eyes were shadowed with passion and that twinge of fear he’d sensed before. Indeed, they were nearly black, her lashes casting ebony smudges on her upper cheeks as she watched him. He never wanted her afraid of him, but he could admit her apprehension left him ravenous

“Who am I? I am a man possessed, Celia. A man determined to taste you.”

Celia sighed, her fingers flexing along the hard line of his jaw. It was both a caress and a subtle restraint of his intentions. “But I know nothing about you. And you know nothing about me.”

Gabriel caught an underlying note of insecurity in her tone. Celia believed his only interest lay in matters of lust. She had no idea how well he actually did know her.