Page 9 of A Scottish Bride for the Duke (Scottish Duchesses #1)

“If and when I marry, it will not be to ye, and thus it does not concern ye.”

“You are staying in my house.” He stepped closer still, and she moved back to preserve the distance between their bodies.

Her back hit the wall, and she sucked in a deep breath.

“Does that mean anything?” she demanded.

“I believe it does.”

“Now that isn’t concern,” she said, lifting her chin. “Perhaps I merely wish to marry one because I find them more appealing.”

“I think,”—his voice lowered to a gravelly rasp—“that is a lie.”

Her breath caught. Somehow—she did not know how—he was close enough that she could feel his body heat. Close enough that when she tilted her head back, it was to find his face directly above her.

The candle flickered against his waistcoat and the delicate embroidery there.

He rested his hand against her head, and although she suspected it was supposed to intimidate her, instead, it made her stomach give a liquid twist.

“What do ye know about that?” she demanded, doing her best to sound unaffected by his presence.

“You did not seem enamored by those boys before.”

“Ye know nothing of the situation.”

“Oh? Am I wrong?” He drifted still closer. “Would you like to tell me in which ways I am mistaken?”

“Ye—”

“Did you want them to kiss you?” he murmured. “Did you want them to get closer?”

She reached up a hand to his chest to push him away, but instead, she found her fingers curling against his shirt.

This was the way Lord Moreton had pushed that poor girl against the wall, but that had been different. There had been none of this air of breathless anticipation; the girl had been struggling to escape while Isobel had the unrelenting urge to pull the duke closer, to wipe the smugness off his face.

Or perhaps she even wanted to know how it would feel if he gave into the hunger she saw in his eyes.

“No,” she confessed, hating herself for the admission.

His hand came to the curve of her jaw. “Is that so?”

Vicious desire burned in his eyes, and the hand holding the candle shook.

He should not look at her like that, not if he wanted them to go back to how they were before—hating each other, mistrusting each other. None of this would make any of that go away, and she did not have any desire to complicate things further.

But oh, she felt the answering call of her desire in her stomach.

Her breath shuddered. His fingers tightened against her jaw, flexing compulsively, and then his mouth was on hers.

There was nothing soft about this kiss. Nothing gentle. He parted her lips with his and took, took, took. His tongue plunged into her mouth, and his body pressed her against the wall.

Fireworks exploded behind the velvety darkness of her eyes, and her body lit as though it had held a match against her wick.

She burned, and the pain was nothing short of delicious.

His hand traveled into her hair, locking there and tilting her head back so he could kiss the hollow of her throat. Isobel gasped, meaning to tell him to stop.

Instead, she dropped the candle, the flame snuffing out before it hit the carpet. Darkness fell over them like a shroud, and she reached for his neck, digging her nails into the skin there.

He growled against her neck and jerked her mouth back to his. This kiss was punishing, and she tugged him closer. Her hips slotted against his, and she felt something hard pressing against her stomach.

Everything in her body went tight and loose all at once.

She was not experienced, but she knew enough about gentlemen and their bodies.

She had spoken to enough girls, married and unmarried, who had experience with a man’s arousal.

He might pretend to be indifferent to her, perhaps even claim that the kiss was his way of teaching her a lesson, but she knew better. She could feel the way he wanted her.

No matter what he claimed, perhaps no matter what he thought, he wanted her.

But even as she thought that, she knew the heat in her own body, the throbbing in her core, was evidence of her arousal. She wanted him, too.

When he took her bottom lip in his teeth, biting down hard enough to make her gasp, she arched her hips into him. Wanting had never felt like this before, liquid and aching and needy.

All from a kiss.

“Adrian,” she panted.

It was the first time she had used his name, and he pulled back, staring down at her, invisible in the darkness. Still, she could feel his eyes on her, the heat from his gaze traveling across her face.

Her lips felt swollen, bee-stung, slightly damp. Her chest heaved with every breath.

He stepped back, and cold air rushed between them.

“This was a mistake,” he said.

Hurt crashed through her desire. He was right, of course. This had been a mistake. One she never should have given into. And yet, hearing him say the words, uttered so coldly, was akin to driving a knife between her ribs.

She tilted her chin up, although he couldn’t see her. “Yes,” she said.

“I should not have?—”

“Let us put it behind us and forget,” she said, still doing her best to keep her composure. “Allow me to go to bed, Yer Grace.” Even as she said the words, she winced.

That sounded far more suggestive than she had intended.

Still.

“Yes.” He cleared his throat and she heard fabric rustling as he bent. “Here,” he said, pressing her candle back into her hand. A match flared, and he lit her candle again. The light illuminated the harsh line of his brows, the tight pull of his mouth.

“Goodnight, Yer Grace.”

“Goodnight, Lady Isobel.”

Her heart pounding, she all but ran back to her bedchamber. The door firmly closed behind her, she sat on the bed and pressed a hand against her chest.

The remnants of the kiss still pulsed lazily inside her. No gentleman had ever kissed her like that, as though he was starving and she was the antidote to his hunger. Yes, she had been kissed before by a young lord who knew very little of what he had been doing.

The duke had known precisely what to do.

She touched her lips with trembling fingers. No, she should most certainly not have let him take such liberties, no matter what she might have wanted at the moment.

She could not trust him; her chance for salvation lay with the duchess and any future husband she could find. Not the mysterious duke with his carefully leashed temper and the hunger in his eyes.

The desire in his kiss.

No, she could not trust him.