Page 38 of The Devil in Her Bed
“Oh, it must have been ages ago.” Cecelia was good at a great many things, but lying was never one of them. She turned to their guest before Francesca could follow up with another question. “Have you met mydear friend the Countess of Mont Claire? Francesca, this is… Lord Drake, apparently.”
Francesca’s lips warmed at the memory of his kiss, and she pressed them together before turning to face him. “We’ve met.” She held out a limp gloved hand.
“Only the once.” His firm hand gripped hers with a strength he barely seemed capable of restraining. Francesca looked up into dark-hazel eyes brimming with meaning even as he kept his tone lighthearted. “I was hoping to meet again before now, in fact we’d made plans to do so.”
“I’m sorry to have dashed your hopes, my lord Drake, but I had a previous engagement, and I’d already let you divert me from it for too long.” Francesca wrinkled her nose in a half smile, half grimace. Just as relieved for his distraction from her predicament as she was irritated at his presence.
His answering smile was full of masculine arrogance. “It’s good to know I’m diverting.”
Upon rolling her eyes, Francesca caught both of the Red Rogues’ questioning glances.
“I’d like to take ye, Lady Francesca.” His gaze traveled down the length of her scarlet gown, leaving trails of fire in their wake.
“I beg your pardon?” Or, rather, she’d give him a chance to beg for his.
“For a turn ’round the garden, of course,” he added, addressing her circle. “If ye can spare her for a quarter hour.”
Ramsay shifted uncomfortably. “It wouldna be proper…”
“But I suppose it’s up to her, isn’t it?” Redmayne cut his brother off and tilted one scarred brow at Francesca. She was often very glad she’d relinquished her betrothal with the duke to Alexandra, but there were moments like this when she realized they’d have found a kinship if the situation had been forced.
“My lady.” The way Drake murmured the words whispered through her, heating the chill Kenway had left in her blood. “Walk with me? I would… discuss something with ye.”
She hesitated. Lord, she couldn’t handle another proposition tonight. Or, God forbid, another proposal.
Her eyes flicked toward Kenway, and she found him watching them with acute interest.
She stared at him defiantly, transmitting a lie.I’m not afraid of you.To illustrate her point, she tucked her hand in Drake’s andshemarchedhimtoward the garden.
Francesca assumed that the tension in his grip conveyed surprise until he disavowed her of the very notion by crowding her into the first dark nook he found and crushing his lips to hers.
Any thought of resistance evaporated as she succumbed to the mouth that had haunted her thoughts since the last time he’d stolen a kiss.
Chandler’s heart pounded with such force, he wondered if it would seize. He was distantly aware of her sound of surprise as he roughly pulled her shock-stiffened body against his. He pried her pliant lips apart with his mouth and plunged inside to feel the velvet silk of her. To taste what he’d craved for weeks now. He kissedher with exacting thoroughness, licking into her mouth in sure glides, enjoying the spar of her tongue and the instant reaction of her entire body.
She came alive in his arms, returning his kiss with unabashed pleasure and hungry inquisitiveness.
Dare he suppose she’d craved him, too?
Her hands worked their way beneath his coat, exploring the ridges of his ribs before working over the winged muscle of his back.
He hadn’t brought her out here to kiss her. It’d just—happened. When he’d seen her earlier, in the arms of the devil… a primal need had taken hold. A need to stake his claim.
He reached for her wrists and gently drew them from inside his jacket, bringing them together between their bodies before he tore his mouth from hers as if fighting a powerful adhesive.
Before he took this any further, he needed to know one thing…
“Tell me ye’ve never taken Lord Kenway into your bed.” He’d meant it as an order, but it escaped closer to a plea.
Her eyes turned from liquid to gem-hard in a second, narrowing with suspicion. “I do not see how that is any of your business.”
Could she not be stubborn for the sum total of one breath? He drew himself up, meaning to intimidate the answer out of her if need be. “Tell. Me.”
“I owe you no such answer.”
“Francesca,” he growled.
She wrenched her hands out of his grasp and ducked under him, out of the nook and back onto theveranda. “Why does it matter to you so much who I’ve taken as a lover? I’m sure you’ve heard I’ve had many, as have you.”
