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He lifted both of her wrists with one of his hands and held her trapped against the rough wood wall. She tried to squirm free but he was too strong.
Waltzing with the man had been a breathless moment of anticipatory awareness... this was the storm.
Her emotions rioted, and her body betrayed her mind, reacting to the feel of his hard, long body covering hers.
Desire shot an arrow through her belly.
A dark shed. A mad, half-clothed duke.
“Let me go,” she said, panting, her breasts rising and falling against his unyielding chest.
Hold me closer. Give me my first kiss. Up against a wall in the dark.
Eyes glittering as you claim my lips.
“It’s not every evening that I’m held at pistol point by a debutante and forced to undress,” he said. “If I let you go, how do I know you won’t lunge for your weapon?”
“You’ll just have to trust me, Your Grace.”
“Ha.” His thumb caressed the inside of her wrist and the longing in her belly, her mind, intensified.
Kiss me now. I want to know what it’s like. I want you to be the one.
What was wrong with her?
“I don’t trust you, MissPenny. I hardly know you. Whom are you planning to meet?”
“That’s none of your concern.”
“Why did you work so hard to make me dislike you while we were dancing?”
“Has it ever occurred to you that not every unmarried lady in the world wants to wed you?”
“Actually, no it hasn’t. Becoming a duchess is a powerful prize. And I am a handsome, virile specimen, despite my bleak reputation.”
“Ha.” Conceited, controlling dukes.
His lip quirked. “You don’t think I’m handsome, MissPenny?”
“Certainly not. Too brooding to be handsome. You prowl around with your own private thundercloud above your head.”
His lips tilted higher in a predatory half smile. “But I heard you muttering about how handsome I was. And how I smell delicious.”
“I must have been speaking of some other duke,” she replied flippantly.
He did smell delectable. A heated blend of spiced musk and sweet almonds that made her want to nuzzle his neck with her nose.
“You’re really not frightened of me at all, are you?” he asked.
“You’re hardly going to murder a debutante at your mother’s ball. Bad for the family name.”
“What’s left of it,” he said, with a wide streak of bitterness in his voice.
“I’m not scared of anything.” That wasn’t true. She was scared of lots of things.
She was frightened of herself, right now, not of him.
Her mind felt foggy and her body wanted to do scandalous things. Being trapped and held at his mercy should have made her furious but apparently made her wanton instead.
