Addicted. Charlotte Featherstone

the way to his core, hitting like a rush—like that first great inhalation of opium.

      If a man’s future was truly preordained—his destiny written while still in the womb—then he was looking upon the woman who was his fate, the woman he knew had been created solely for him.

      He had always known that someday Anais would belong to him. She would be more than his friend. He’d always believed it, but never more than this moment as their gazes collided together, and their bodies became aware of each other.

      She always took his breath away. They’d been friends forever, since young childhood, but his feelings were no longer chaste or platonic. No, his feelings and desires were hot. Passionate. Erotic. And the perfumed dreams he had of Anais last night had been the most erotic yet. The things she had let him do to her…

      One day, they wouldn’t be just dreams and fantasies.

      “Good evening, Lindsay.”

      Her soft voice washed over him like a caress, and he felt himself grow aroused. It was so hard to hide his feelings from her. He doubted he could for much longer.

      Her gloved hand felt so right in his palm as he raised her fingers to his lips. Her eyes, those beautiful, mesmerizing pools, captured his attention, watching as his lips slowly descended to her fingertips. He lingered there, inhaling her perfume, watching the rise and fall of her breasts in the tight bodice. She moved in, just a hint, and the cloud of her rich perfume rose up to coil around him.

      She had scented her breasts with the French perfume he had purchased for her.

      Desire gripped him, and lost to everything but need, he closed his eyes and inhaled the heady scent. In his mind, he could see the golden liquid trickle between the cleft of her breasts. He saw the cut crystal bottle stopper in her hand as she trailed it along her cleavage. One day, he vowed, he would lay negligently in their bed, which would be rumpled from their lovemaking, and watch her at her toilette. One day, he would come and stand behind her and take the stopper from her hand and trace her breasts with it. One day, she would look into the mirror and see him standing there, desire in his eyes.

      “Lindsay?”

      Slowly, his eyelids opened and there she was. Her head was bent, her lips ripe for his mouth to plunder. It would be no trial—and highly arousing—to pull the little puffy sleeves of her gown down her arms and expose her. He knew she would be wearing a corset, but in his dreams, she would be naked beneath, bared to his eyes and hands.

      His gaze swept over her face, which was so lovely to him, then down her throat, which he longed to brush his lips over, down to the pulse that fluttered like butterfly wings. Every inch of her was as luscious as a sweet from the candy shop. And God above, he was beyond wanting a taste of her.

      “Good evening, my angel,” he said over her hand. “You look ravishing, as always.”

      “You have been practicing your flattery, my lord,” she said with a little laugh that was too high. Nervous? Aroused? Her laugh seemed unnatural. “The ladies in London must swoon at your skill, sir.”

      “I do not know. I do not share any compliments with ladies other than you, Anais.”

      Her eyes told him she was dubious about his sincerity. “Truth,” he whispered in her ear.

      She bristled at the sudden contact of their bodies. He was forgetting himself, forgetting where he was. Forgetting that in Anais’s mind they were friends, not lovers.

      Yet, in his mind they’d been lovers for years. Carnally, he was very well acquainted with every inch of her enticing body. What man wouldn’t dream of a woman like Anais? Plump and womanly, she would feel so damn good beneath him with her hair, that was golden blond and long, draped over his chest. Her breasts, large and firm, would cushion him, would beckon him to taste and play—would amuse him for hours. Her décolletage, which was always so elegantly but tastefully displayed in her gowns, never ceased to capture his notice, nor his imagination. Hell, there wasn’t a part of her body that didn’t entice him. He wanted to span her hips with his hands and crush her to his pelvis, grinding into her. He wanted to feel her soft belly cushion his cock, he wanted to fill his hands with her firm bottom, and knead as he plunged his tongue between her soft lips. He wanted to strip her down and study the body that held him captive for so many years.

      His hands, he knew, would worship her curves, and he would lose himself in those lovely blue eyes that reminded him of a clear sky. Her shy smile would be his undoing—it always had been.

      Anais was built for loving, for the type of bed sport be enjoyed. With Anais he wouldn’t have to feel as though he were going to break her. He wouldn’t have to treat her like a fragile flower. He could indulge in that luscious body for hours.

      But more than her body, Lindsay lusted for her heart, that piece of her she guarded so carefully. He wanted to mean something more to her than friend. Lover, confidant, he wanted Anais for her body, her sharp mind, and the friendship he had always relied upon.

      Of course, seeing her tonight, friendship wasn’t on his mind. Her décolletage, and the elegant line of her throat covered with his lips had suddenly rushed to the forefront of his thoughts.

      One day, he knew he was going to see her naked, and that visual would be a hundred times more arousing than it was in his dreams.

      “I think that was the bell for dinner,” his mother announced over the drumming of voices that filled the salon.

      “Allow me?” Lindsay held his arm out to Anais. She slipped her hand so easily around his forearm and pressed into his side. His body hardened as he felt her hips contour against his. He wished he could drag her off to his den and confess all to her. But first he had to do the pretty and be a gentleman.

      “You look different somehow,” she said as she looked up at him.

      “Oh?”

      She nodded and a curling strand of golden-blond hair slipped from a pin, only to land on the crest of her breast that was exposed by her low-cut bodice. God help him if that strand was going to lie there all evening long. He couldn’t drag his gaze away from it, nor vanquish the image of his lips brushing it aside.

      “I’m not sure what it is. You just seem…different. It’s in your eyes.”

      Heat. Longing. Desire. He knew what was reflected there. He couldn’t hide it.

      “Lindsay, are you all right? You’ve been acting strangely ever since you arrived back from London two weeks ago.”

      Yes, he was perfectly sound. Just needy for her.

      “Meet me tonight, Anais. At the stables.”

      She cocked her head to the side, studied him, and he felt the compulsion to shrink back in horror and shame. Was it not his amorous feelings she saw reflected in his eyes, but something else? The other side of him he hid from the world.

      “I’m worried about you.”

      He smiled and clutched her fingers. “There’s no need. Now, after dessert, tell your mother you’re going for a ride. We’ll ride into the forest and I might even let you beat me.”

      She laughed then, her eyes sparkling. “Oh, how you delude yourself. For I am going to trounce you. Just you wait and see.”

      God willing he thought, as he led Anais into the dining room. Although he had the feeling that they were both thinking two different things when it came to trouncing.

      Something was afoot. Anais stole another sidelong glance at Lindsay, who sat to the right of her. There was a feral intensity about him this evening, one she had never seen before from her longtime friend.

      Whatever had brought on his bizarre behavior this evening had obviously been beleaguering him for the past fortnight. Lindsay had simply not been himself these past two weeks.

      Perhaps it was the extraordinarily lovely Lady Mary Grantworth who had made his wits addled. Mary certainly stared enough at him from her spot across the table.