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Izzy is a survivor, she wrote back to Allegra. She’ll land on her feet. It’s the defining family trait. Say what you will about Chantelle (I mean that) but she always sorts things out in her favor, doesn’t she? So will Izzy.
But she couldn’t help thinking about her half sister long after she hit Send. It wasn’t like Izzy to disappear from view for very long. She was much more like their mother in that regard—she’d never heard of keeping a low profile. But what did Angel know? She’d seemed to turn over a new leaf, quite by accident, in the wake of Allegra’s engagement party. Why shouldn’t Izzy?
“How is the outside world?” Rafe asked from the doorway, making Angel start. But she only smiled, letting her eyes drink in the sight of him, as if it had been years since she’d last seen him like this, all lean and dark and gorgeous, instead of an hour or two. Her stomach dropped in that now familiar little flip of reaction to him. And her body, so attuned to him now, readied itself for the pleasure he could deliver.
“Very much the same,” she said, closing the lid of her laptop. She eyed him, standing there in the doorway, almost as if he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to enter the countess’s chamber. She wondered, not for the first time, what kind of woman his mother had been. “The whole world is carrying on just fine without me.”
Rafe prowled toward the bed. Angel felt her smile deepen.
“I am not,” he said in a low voice when he was close.
He stood over her, his mouth slightly curved in that way she found toe-curlingly sexy. She wanted to taste it, him, and so she came up on her knees and moved to meet him. He took her mouth in a kiss so deep, so carnal, that she felt her whole body tighten and then burst into molten heat.
And that suddenly, she was desperate for him. Again.
Always, that little voice whispered inside of her, propped up by that brightness that seemed to glow more and more each time he touched her like this, each time they took each other higher.
And then his hands were on her body and she stopped thinking altogether.
* * *
He could not get enough of her.
Rafe kept waiting for the fever to pass, for the fire to subside, but it only grew worse. The more he had her, the more he wanted her. On the table in that dining room, just as he’d imagined. In the woods in the spot where she’d almost left him. In the gallery, beneath the austere frowns of his noble ancestors.
He was made of want. Of need. He knew every variation of her sighs now—what each one meant, how much pleasure each indicated, and what to do to ramp it up even further. He never tired of exploring her lovely body. He began to wonder if he ever would. He had always been the sort of man who concentrated on what was in front of him, but this was something more than simple focus. She distracted him even when she was nowhere in sight. She was like an itch beneath his skin, and all he could think to do was scratch it. Repeatedly.
He told himself that was enough.
Tonight he’d had to take a call during their usual meal time, and so looked for her in the library when he was done. As he expected, she was curled up in that same leather chair. And as usual, she was wearing one of her formal gowns, as she did every night, while he remained deliberately casual in response.
“You are dressed for a ball,” he pointed out as he walked toward her. He realized he’d quickened his pace the moment he saw her, and didn’t know where to put that. She set her book aside and watched him draw closer, a smile in her bright blue eyes if not on her lush little mouth.
“Who knows?” she asked. “Perhaps there will be dancing in Pembroke Manor tonight. Hope springs eternal.”
He came to a stop in front of her chair and held out his hand. Her eyes widened, and he felt his mouth move in response. There was no getting around it—he was smiling. He felt it move through him like light.
What was it about her, he wondered, that made him believe she could cure the things in him he’d always believed were damaged beyond repair? Simply with that smile? Her touch?
“Dance with me,” he said softly. Repeating what she’d said to him in the Palazzo Santina, he realized, with so much more between them now. Her answering smile told him she remembered it too. She slipped her hand into his and let him pull her to her feet.
She wore a gown the color of a good red wine, a deep, rich burgundy. It fell low on her neck, exposing her delicate collarbone, then framed her pert breasts with a line of draped ruffles from one shoulder before swirling down to her feet. The effect was somehow edgy and elegant all at once. She looked good enough to eat. She always did. She smelled of something soft and feminine, and her clever eyes glowed as they met his. He wanted to be deep inside her, moving, driving them both wild. He was hard and ready and even though he knew she would be ready for him too, he ignored the temptation and pulled her into his arms instead.
