Page 15 of A Rakish Duke's Rules for Love

“More than anything.”

Anastasia held his shoulder and let his questing tongue in. With a stuttered catch of breath, she followed his languid rhythm, their tongues moving softly as he palmed her hip and brought her to rest flush against him.

She felt surrounded by him, possessed by him, and she longed to pull herself closer into him even though not even air could pass between them. Anastasia threw reason out the window as she wanted nothing but to taste him, touch him, feel this experience.

He pulled away, and only then did she feel the burning in her lungs.

His second kiss was deeper, his mouth opened wider, and he seemed to be stealing the breath from her very lungs as he devoured her kisses, but it was not an unpleasant thing. In fact, every moment tossed her from cloud to cloud, making her feel completely alive.

“You are magnificent,” he whispered hoarsely.

Holding her tightly, his kiss warm and firm, he dissolved her doubts in a wave of honeyed heat. When his tongue swept across her lips, it was only natural to part them, to meet her tongue with his and allow the sinuous, slick dance that caused the tips of her breasts to tingle, a strange, molten feeling awakening inside her.

Gabriel kissed with absolute authority…and it made her relax into the new, exciting sensations. The wash of gooseflesh crept over her skin, the throbbing of her pulse points and the twist and trembles deep inside her. Her knees wobbled, but he caught her easily against him.

Held against his virile strength, she shivered with delight. Everything about him felt so right. A sudden gush of wetness between her thighs made her gasp—and she felt something very hard and large press against her midsection.

Pulling away, she gazed up, her voice hushed and awed, “Now I know why your reputation is as it is; you have effortlessly cast a spell on me.”

“That’s the first time I’ve heard that,” Gabriel replied quietly.

Stepping away, Anastasia shook her head, “I must rejoin the rest. It seems your announcement has made me the unofficial belle of the ball. Good evening, Your Grace.”

“Gabriel,” he replied to her, “I would prefer if you called me Gabriel.”

With his back on the cold railing, Gabriel let the icy air buffer his face, hoping it would blow some common sense and restraint into him. If Anastasia had not stopped him, he would have kissed her till sunrise.

If she had not walked away, he would have found them a bed defying his every concern. He wanted to see her hair in a wild riot of curls as he slid inside her. He ached to have her wrapped up in sweat-slick sheets and see her kiss-marked flushed skin, her body breathless, and trembling under him.

I have lost control before yes, but no woman has made me want to do that, to keep her in my bed.

Rubbing his face, he grunted, “I am fit for Bedlam.”

He waited until the wind chilled his skin and the lust running through his veins before he was able to rejoin the ball—only for his blood to heat again. Anastasia was dancing a waltz with Lord Merton, a cut-rate Marquess with the face of Adonis: he was buried in debt and rumored to have fathered three bastards with three different whores.

Gabriel noted how Merton’s hand dipped low on Anastasia’s back. He knew exactly what the man was feeling because he held her the same way not half an hour ago. The warmth, the softness, the subtle curve of her spine. Anger spiked through his veins, and he fisted his hands at his sides.

“I need a drink,” he grumbled, striding off in search of a good, hard whiskey or scotch that would strip his stomach like acid; anything would do if it blinded him to the sight of Anastasia waltzing with a man, any man, if that man was not him.

The drinks offered were not strong enough for him, so he sent a footman to get the proper stuff. When he was handed the bottle, he retreated to a parlor where some men were playing cards.

He swallowed half a glass, barely feeling the burn until he took the following half. Gabriel was not sure when he had made the turn from deciding to let Anastasia do as she wanted during their ‘courtship’ to wanting to drag her away from any man who looked at her twice.

“God’s blood man,” David said as he came to Gabriel’s table. “What are you doing here? There is half-a-room of ladies aching to dance with you and at least a quarter of that number ready to grace your sheets as well, and you’re here…doing what, sulking? Why?”

“Nothing that concerns you,” Gabriel growled. “You may return and tell these ladies to keep their gifts for their husbands, or better yet, claim them for yourself.”

Dragging out a chair, David leaned in. “What the deuce is wrong with you?”

Gabriel’s gut churned with the realization that another of his rules had been broken—his chest was burning with jealousy. He did not want another man touching Ana, looking at Ana, or sampling her succulent lips.

Pressing the glass to his temple, Gabriel laughed hollowly. “Five, Gladhame,five. I have broken five of my bloody rules already.”

“And that distresses you?”

“Of course, it distresses me,” he said. “I have lived half of my life by those rules, and to have them undermined so easily—I feel unsteady. Nothing is right anymore.”

David sighed, “This girl has your head tied up in slipknots. Take some time to get your head back where it should be.”

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