Page 82 of In the Prince's Bed

Her eyes went wide. “Now, Alec, you aren’t going to—”

“Shh, sweetheart.” Shucking his waistcoat, he caught her to him. “Let the master work.”

His temper spurring him on, he took her mouth with grim determination. Time to show his wife-to-be that he meant to master her, one way or the other. And if he had to do it by seducing her, then so be it.

Chapter Twenty

Some women are too clever to be seduced.

—Anonymous,A Rake’s Rhetorick

The man was infuriating! He always thought to get round her by kissing her…turning her knees to mush…sparking a low heat inside her belly that—

No! She jerked back from him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Anger still rode him; she could see it in his glittering eyes as he removed his cravat. “What I should have done two nights ago—making sure we get married.”

His words sent a thrill coursing through her. “By seducing me.”

“That’s what I’m supposed to do, isn’t it?” His words were clipped. Flicking open the buttons of his shirt with one hand, he glared at her. “That’s what we rakehells live for—seducing young innocents.”

He yanked his shirt over his head, and her mouth went dry. For a moment, she forgot about their argument and his anger. She could only stare at his bare chest—the sculpted muscles, lean waist, the strands of black hair caught in the glow of the lamp, reminding her of that wonderful night at Astley’s…

She shook herself. “I know you’re not a rakehell.”

“Really?” He dragged her into his arms. “Is that why you carry that blasted book around in your reticule like a talisman?”

“It’s not…I just—”

He cut off her feeble protest with a hot, furious kiss. For a moment, she let him kiss her. She shouldn’t blame him for his fury; his explanations had been totally plausible. And shehadoverreacted to his lateness. Nor had she told Sydney of their betrothal as she’d promised.

But she still didn’t quite trust him, either. He was hiding something; she could sense it in the way he avoided certain questions.

She wriggled out of his embrace to slip from between him and the orange tree and back farther down the path. “You can’t seduce me.”

He prowled after her as relentlessly as a conqueror marching over a vulnerable land. “I can do as I please. I’m a rakehell, remember?”

“Would you stop saying that?” She nearly stumbled over a watering pot before catching her balance and backing farther away. “You don’t mean it. You’re just annoyed by my book.”

“I’m far beyond mere annoyance, I assure you.”

The determined way he stalked her sent a shiver down her spine. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a shiver of fear. “You can’t do this. People might see.”

“Not back here, away from the windows.”

Goodness, he was serious. “But everyone will guess what we’re doing.” She thrust a chair in his path.

He knocked it aside.“Ifthey even guess we’re in here. Anyone who has returned to the balcony will find the garden empty and assume that we’ve returned to the house. And if they don’t, that’s fine, too. Then you’llhaveto marry me.”

He cornered her in a little alcove with a wide, cushioned bench at her back. But when he pounced, it wasn’t to haul her into his arms. Instead, he turned her so he could unfasten her buttons.

The mere brush of his fingers down her gown uncoiled a reckless excitement in her belly that she struggled to ignore. “We cannot do this.”

“We can.” He raked kisses along her neck, in her hair, on the parts of her upper back he bared inch by inch.

It was all she could do to keep her mind unfogged by his seductions. “We’re not married yet.”

“We will be.” He pushed her gown off her shoulders, and it fell to her waist, baring her corset and chemise. He unlaced her corset so easily that it annoyed her.