Page 32 of A Virgin for the Duke of Thorns

“Y-you cannot be doing this,” she protested softly, placing her hands on his chest as she looked up at him. “Monopolizing all my dances, dragging me into such scandalous locations, meeting me in secret…”

Colin smirked at the uncertainty flickering in her eyes. She had such beautiful, expressive eyes, her every emotion apparent in them. Just looking at her like this, he could read her like an open book.

“Why are you here, then?” he asked her softly, reaching up to toy with a stray curl that had fallen to the side of her face. He delighted in the slight shudder that ran through her. “Have I not made myself clear?”

She frowned, a small sound of exasperation escaping those luscious lips of hers. “In what manner have you not made yourself clear? You have already repeated countless times that this is nothing more than a fake betrothal?—”

“Exactly,” he said firmly. “But you seemed to have missed the part that fake betrothal or not, you are mine for the next thirty days.”

He gave her no chance to protest as he drew her into his arms, his lips swallowing whatever objections she might have had.

Bloody hell, those lips of hers had been driving him mad all night, wondering just how they might taste—and he was not disappointed. On the contrary, he wanted nothing more than to devour her over and over and over again.

The first touch had been meant to subdue her, to let her know that he was the one in control. The moment she responded in kind, he was lost.

A Wolf caught in a lamb’s net—and one he had no desire to escape.

CHAPTER 13

She was burning.

What had felt like a low, simmering heat had become a conflagration that threatened to consume her body and soul. A shiver of delight danced down her spine as her toes curled inside her shoes, mirroring her fingers, which now dug into his broad shoulders as she clung to him like he was the very anchor that kept her from being tossed about in a stormy sea.

It was not like she had never heard of kisses before—she most certainly had, although she had yet to experience them for herself. She had thought kisses merely a prelude to… other things and could not understand why so many had fallen to ruin for them.

Now, she understood exactly why.

Simply put, a kiss had the capability to annihilate one’s inhibitions—or at least that is what it felt like as Colin pressed his lips hungrily to hers. When she felt his tongue tracing her bottom lip, all logical thought fled her.

She became a creature of desire to be molded according to his will. Like a flame that danced to his tune.

She pressed herself against him, eager for more of what he could show her, teach her, when the distinct sound of someone clearing their throat tore through the night air. A simple sound, and yet it ripped through her consciousness like a crack of thunder.

Immediately, Alice jumped back, her entire body going numb and cold at the possibility of someone chancing upon them in a most scandalous embrace. If it had not been for Colin, who had his arm still wound about her, she would have no doubt fled as far away as she could manage.

“I have to go,” she murmured, squirming in his grasp.

For a moment, she feared that he would not allow it. His blue-gray eyes had hardened until they were like dark chips of ice, and his lips pressed into a grim line.

And then, his hold on her loosened, and he dropped his arm wordlessly.

“Do not run,” he told her hoarsely. “And enter from the side.”

Because if she entered from the balcony, it was as good a declaration of what they had been doing.

Alice had seen other young ladies fall to disgrace. She would not be one of them.

She nodded curtly to Colin and picked up her skirts to calmly head back to the ballroom, her head held high even as her heart pounded crazily in her chest. She followed his advice and entered from the side, finding herself in a well-lit corridor that led to the ballroom.

She paused before a mirror with an ornate gilt frame and took note of the high color of her cheeks and her lips, which were still swollen from the force of Colin’s kiss. With a trembling hand, she traced her bottom lip, and her entire face turned an even deeper shade of red. She could still feel her lips burning, could still feel her body wanting more…

She shook her head.

This is madness!

She had spent the better part of three Seasons—three!—on her best behavior with nary a breath of scandal to her name. How could she throw it all away with a single invitation from a man she had not even known for very long?

A Wolf, indeed!

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