Page 26 of A Bride for the Devilish Duke

“Tell me to stop,” he rasped, teeth grazing her shoulder. “And I will.”

She opened her eyes—blue fire meeting molten gold.

“Lie to me again, and I just might.”

He groaned, half-laughing, half-cursing as he captured her mouth once more. Her fingers threaded into his hair, tugging. Her thighs shifted against him in open invitation.

And he took it.

His hands slid beneath her skirts this time, callused fingers traveling up silk-covered calves, then higher—to where silk ended and soft, bare skin began. She gasped, clutching his shoulders as he found the vulnerable underside of her thigh and swept his palm over it, boldly,possessively.

“Damien…”

She moaned—glorious, unrestrained—and it went straight to his core.

But just as he leaned in to claim her wet lips again, a sharp bleat of a sheep shattered the moment.

He stilled.

Emma froze.

They both turned, blinking like startled deer, as a shepherd wandered down the far slope, oblivious—or perhaps blessedly unaware.

Damien stepped back at once, breathing hard. Emma slipped down from the wall, tugging her skirts into place with shaking hands, her cheeks flushed crimson.

She found her shoe without looking, slipped it on, then glanced at him.

“That,” she said breathlessly, “was a terrible idea.”

CHAPTER NINE

Emma stared at her reflection in the mirror as Elsie brushed her hair. She had bathed in preparation for dinner.

Presently, she sat at her dressing table, clad in a dressing gown, naked beneath. She had thought of the intimacy she shared with Damien during her long soak in the steaming water. She thought of it now—she could not stop thinking of it.

“You seem distracted, my lady,” Elsie noted.

Emma focused. “No, not particularly,” she lied.

Her noirette maid raised an eyebrow. “I have just spent the last hour tying and untying your hair,” she said levelly.

Emma stared at her in the mirror and then burst into laughter.

“You did not!” she exclaimed.

“No, I did not,” Elsie admitted, “but you thought I might have, which is the same difference. Care to share what's on your mind besides the obvious?”

“And what is the obvious?”

“A handsome man with the body of Hercules,” Elsie said, holding Emma's gaze in the mirror.

Emma blushed, watching the color spread to her chest from her neck and face. That made her think of her nakedness, and that, in turn, reminded her of Damien's hands upon her.

“I fear that I have... disgraced myself,” Emma murmured.

Elsie's eyes bulged, and she promptly perched on the edge of the dressing table to look at Emma directly.

“Tell all, please do!” she said eagerly.