She averted her eyes then, and he watched as a swath of dark pink swept over her décolletage, her throat, her chin, and he cursed the mask for preventing him from seeing her cheeks blush a rosy hue. He took pleasure from knowing she had dreamed about him. “Perhaps you’ll tell me about them later.”

Her eyes swung back to his. “I very much doubt it.”

“I can be most persuasive when I set my mind to it.”

“My reason for coming here has not changed. However, if you can’t accommodate me—”

“Oh, I’ll accommodate you, and when I’m done, you’ll be ever so glad I did.”

A hitch of her breath, a parting of those lush lips, another blush, a deeper pink than the first.

He tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow in a way that even to him seemed rather possessive. “Come. I want to share with you one of the rooms we didn’t get to last night.”

She didn’t resist when he began to escort her along the outer rim of the gaming floor. He didn’t go through its center because he didn’t want any other lady snagging his attention or trying to divert him from his goal of seduction, especially as Selena had tossed down the gauntlet about accommodating her or she’d go elsewhere. Over his rotting corpse. He liked the challenge of her but was baffled by his reasoning for not simply tossing her on the bed, hiking up her skirts, and plowing the sweet furrow she was offering. He’d had women before who simply wanted a bit of the rough.

Perhaps that was all she wanted as well—to experience spreading her legs for someone beneath her. Why was he so deuced determined to ensure it wasn’t the bedding she craved but him? Why was it not enough to simply have a frolic? Why did he want what they experienced to have some meaning for her, to be more than the scratch of an itch?

Damn her, damn him, but he didn’t want her to be easy.

He took her to the ballroom, to the same door he’d opened for her the night before, up the same steps, into the same corridor, but past the room with the fainting couch to one at the end of the hallway. The footman posted outside it who, on an ordinary night, was to ensure any ladies within had all they required, had been told to gently tell any who wanted to make use of it that it was unavailable for entertainments this evening.

Once he spotted Aiden, he gave a curt nod, reached back, and opened the door. Aiden escorted her inside, the soft snick of the door closing behind them making the room seem far more intimate than it might otherwise.