He’s not playing fair and I know from the way his fingers splay over the warmth of my skin, he knows it.
My painted body might as well leave me fully naked. Every nerve ending sparks to life under his gentle caresses.
"Watch," he murmurs against my ear, and slowly turns me toward the stage.
The glitter-covered dancers have faded into the shadows, and in their place, three men walk toward the center of the platform. They're beautiful in different ways, all muscles and masculine grace, and completely naked. My lips part with surprise, but then they step aside and reveal a fourth figure.
A woman. A goddess. All curves and confidence, lowered onto a velvet settee by her lovers with a reverence that makes my chest ache.
"Oh." The sound escapes me before I can stop it.
My mystery man chuckles, the vibration traveling through his chest and into my spine. His hand splays across my midriff, warm and possessive, holding me against the hard length of him.
"Listen to her moans, jungle flower." His voice is sin wrapped in temptation, sliding into my ear and straight down to my core. "The way she gasps. Watch her expression as one lover devours her center while another slowly feeds his length into her mouth."
I watch the erotic show. God help me, I can't look away.
The woman arches into the mouth between her thighs, her hands tangling in the hair of the man kissing her breasts,her lips wrapped around a third lover who moves with gentle, devastating patience. It's art. It's pornography. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
And behind me, pressed against me, the stranger's hand begins to move.
"Watch as he taps the back of her throat and she swallows him deeper. Have you seen such an alluring image?"
“No,” I admit softly.
My breathing grows ragged. Every red blood cell in my body is on fire, rushing through my veins with an urgency that borders on painful.
I need.
I want. I've never felt anything like this desperation clawing at my insides.
"I like the way she's pinching her nipples," I admit in a hushed tone, barely recognizing my own voice.
But my stranger hears me. His hand slides up to cup my breast, and even through the layer of paint and the sticky covering Luna applied, his touch brands me. Strong fingers sink into my flesh, and when they tighten around my nipple, I shudder in his arms and nearly come apart right there.
If he were touching bare skin, I'd already be gone.
"Have you ever felt the heat of a lover's touch, jungle flower?"
Fire flashes through me. My heart hammers. Is he asking if I am a virgin? He knows. He has to. Or he at least suspects. Either way, the question hangs between us and it feels like a dirty secret that will get me kicked out of here if I say no.
"It depends." I tiptoe around the truth, terrified he'll lose interest if he knows what I really am. What I've never been allowed to be.
"On?"
His finger traces the black lines of the flowers Luna painted onto my body hours ago. Over one breast, across to the other, then lower. Over the curve of my abdomen, following the path of vines and leaves toward the place where I'm already aching.
I inhale deeply.
"You were saying, jungle flower?"
For a second I can't remember my own name, much less my words. He caresses his hungry lips over the curve of my shoulder, and then he bites at the tender flesh while tugging at my nipple. Neither touch is hard enough to hurt, but the blend of pleasure and pressure makes me inhale sharply through my teeth.
I wrap my fingers around his and tilt my head back against his shoulder, slowly parting my thighs in invitation. "Are you asking if I go around sleeping with strangers often?"
Once again, I dance around what he's really asking.
His laugh is warm and knowing, rumbling through his chest. "No, my beauty. I already know picking up strangers in dark clubs is not your preference." He pauses to place a soft kiss beneath my ear, right on that spot that makes a woman's knees go weak.