Page 21 of The Duke of Deceit

She moved back, just as he’d hoped. “I am not.”

He gave a low chuckle. If he had sworn she was the most interesting woman in the world, the chit would have sworn she was dull as dust, just to be contrary. “You pretend to be all gruff and tough,” he said, taking another step that closed the distance between them, “but I know better.”

“You don’t know me.” Her last step back bumped her against the stone balustrade behind her.

“So much more than you realize.” He leaned over to place his palms flat on the balustrade on either side of her and lowered his head until their eyes were level. “I know you live in a small townhouse that you and your aunt are renting from friendsrather than leasing, and that you’re an artist who has hired her talents out to Mathias Meade’s print shop.”

Her soft intake of air was unmistakable. “How do you know that?”

“You’re not the only one devious enough to do reconnaissance on the enemy. When a man’s under attack, he should find out all he can about his opponents and use it to his advantage. For example, I know you clench your hands in your skirts when what you really want to do is slap me.”

“You’re wrong.” She punctuated that with a crocodile smile. “What I want to do is scratch your eyes out.”

The breathless tone of her voice belied her fierce words, and his lips curled with amusement. “Which means I should know well enough to stay out of striking range if you clench your fists.” He pointedly glanced down at her hands which were holding tight to the balustrade on both sides of her hips as if she were afraid she might sink to the ground. “Just as I know you have a cutting wit, a sharp mind, and are well-educated enough to give every bluestocking in London a run for her money when it comes to drawing room discussions.”

“My!” she said impertinently. “Who knew rakes had so much time on their hands to spend it learning about someone so inconsequential?”

“Not inconsequential at all.” More truth lay behind that quiet answer than he wanted to admit. She’d found a chink in his armor, and he had to send her running before she struck a fatal blow. “You’re very important to me right now. No other chit has ever had the courage to take me on the way you have, certainly never one so intriguing.”

“I’m not intriguing. You don’t know me at all if you think that.”

An urge rose inside him to prove her wrong. “I know you well enough to notice how your eyes change colors from blue to greendepending upon the light and what you’re wearing, although I can’t figure out the exact shade of your hair. Blonde, of course, but not strawberry although tints of copper appear when the sunlight hits it just right. Not golden like straw but far richer than that.” He reached up to touch one of her curls, and the soft intake of her breath shot through him like an electric jolt. “You also bite your lip when you’re nervous.” His gaze dropped to her mouth. “Like now.”

He caressed his thumb across her bottom lip until she released it. The desire to take more than that fleeting touch captured him, and he forced himself to place his hand back on the balustrade before her fists clenched and a slap came his way.

“Just as I know exactly how those lips taste,” he murmured, unable to tear his attention away from her mouth. “How sweet and soft, with just a hint of spiciness beneath. How they moved delicately against mine. And when you sighed…delicious.” He lowered his head to bring his mouth to her ear. “You made me tremble, Jessamyn, and no one does that.”

He waited for her denial, but none came.

So he dared to press further. “Which made me wonder…” He trailed off and waited.

“Wonder what?” she asked, impatiently succumbing to her curiosity and taking the bait, just as he knew she would.

“What else you might do that makes me tremble.” He smiled against the soft skin of her earlobe. “What else I can do to makeyoutremble, too.”

The devil inside him made him take her earlobe between his lips and gently suck.

She gasped, and he froze as her hands clenched into fists. He waited for her to slap him. Instead, she placed her palms against his chest. But no shove came to push him away.

He was playing with fire, he knew. He should have stepped back, laughed at her for her innocence, and strode back inside to leave her here, aroused and disappointed.

But he couldn’t help himself. So he slowly moved his mouth to the tender flesh behind her ear and placed a languid kiss there. Beneath his lips, he felt her quake. He should have been disappointed to discover she was so untouched as to respond to such an innocuous kiss, but oddly, he wasn’t. Her reaction only made him want more of her.

“You like having my mouth on you,” he murmured against her neck and was rewarded by the spike of her pulse beneath his lips.

“I don’t.” But her protest was undercut by her fingertips curling into his waistcoat.

“Liar.” He gave a gentle nip against her throat in punishment.

His heart thudded against his ribs when she tilted back her head to give him access to her neck, an invitation he gladly accepted by scraping his teeth across her throat. Her fingers dug deeper into his chest, and instead of shrinking away, she leaned closer.

For that, he rewarded her with a hot, open-mouthed kiss against her neck. A soft sigh escaped her, and he took that as permission to keep tempting her.

“You like having my mouth on you here,” he repeated. “Which makes me wonder how much you’d like having it on you in other places.” He lowered his lips to the gentle slope of bare flesh where her neck curved into her shoulder. “All those wonderfully warm and soft places you keep hidden from the world.”

He nudged at the capped shoulder of her gown with his cheek when what he wanted to do was rip it away with his teeth. Frustratingly, he had to satisfy himself only with nuzzling thebare stretch of flesh above her modest neckline. But he let his lips wander as low as they could to kiss the soft flesh just beneath her single string of pearls.

“Your breasts in my hands, massaging your hard nipples against my palms,” he murmured in a low voice against her skin. If he couldn’t touch her there, at least he could take pleasure in the image conjuring in his mind. His tightening gut certainly thought so. “Your hard nipples sucked between my lips until they ache.” Then true blackness flared inside him, and he couldn’t resist whispering heatedly, “I’d place a kiss right there at the ache between your legs, too, as wicked and wet as can be.”