Page 38 of All Scot and Bothered

That heat built within him. Called the beast once again to the surface. It prowled beneath his skin, rippled along his nerves, lancing an intense lust through his loins.

She’s yours for the taking, it growled.

Ramsay tore his lips from hers, his hands unable to release her. Not just yet.

She stared at him, her eyes wide, glistening behind spectacles partially fogged with the moisture of their combined breath.

“Christ, ye’re lovely,” he said in a voice raspy and dark. One he didn’t recognize as his own.

“So are you,” she replied dreamily, evoking a chuckle.

“Lass, I’d best return ye home.” If he didn’t, he’d ruin not just her reputation, but her coiffure, her dress, her composure.

Her innocence.

His soul.

She nodded languidly, her eyes unfocused. Inebriated, but not with drink. With desire. Possibly with the inevitability of what came next for them both. Her gaze locked on his lips with an almost puzzled consternation. As if to ask if his mouth had stolen her ability for speech.

She’s yours, the beast whispered.Claim what you want.

Nay.He reluctantly let her go, turning from her while he still could, to open the gate and call to his coachman down the lane.

He’d promised never to have another woman in sin.

And Cecelia Teague was a woman with no desire to be claimed.

What would it take to change her mind?

Because without knowing it, or probably even meaning to, she’d begun to change his.

CHAPTERSEVEN

For the entire next morning, Cecelia had to bite her own tongue to keep from screaming the truth.

I kissed Ramsay.

She was adept at keeping secrets, wasn’t she? She’d helped to bury the body of Alexandra’s rapist in a poppy garden behind their school on Lake Geneva. She was one of the few people in the world who knew that Francesca, the Countess of Mont Claire’s real name was Pippa Hargrave. That she was an imposter bent on revenge against those who’d murdered her family and the real Francesca Cavendish.

She’d never revealed to anyone that Vicar Teague wasn’t her father. That she was a bastard and a fraud. Unwanted. Unloved.

Unclaimed.

She knew she’d made a mistake last night by being alone with Ramsay. She didn’texactlywant to hear the Rogues’ opinions on it, because certainly they’d be unfavorable considering she was lying to the man.

And because he was intent upon her utter obliteration.

So why did a confession regarding last night’s tipsy indiscretion burn her tongue, demanding to be spat out?

For the most part, she’d been able to contain herself. But during the rare moments her friends were silent, as they were now, standing in the foyer of a gambling hell that had recently become hers, the confession bubbled in her throat like expensive champagne. Threatening to burp forth, condemning her for an absolute fool.

I kissed Ramsay. I can still feel him on my lips. Taste him on my tongue. Sense the scrape of his callused fingertips across my cheek.

I kissed Ramsay, and I never wanted to stop.

“Oh my.” Alexandra’s breathy exclamation paralyzed her.

Cecelia swallowed. Twice, curling her lips between her teeth.