Page 42 of The Devil in Her Bed

Who was she?

In his arms, she had no idea. She’d never met this woman before, so unleashed and uncalculated.

Who was he that he could wreak this kind of havoc upon her?

Whatwas he?

A friend? An enemy?

That’s what she needed to find out. Why she was here in this carriage. She mustn’t forget that. She wasn’t here for the sake of her seduction.

But information.

Even as she did her best to collect the ice around her heart, her body heated to such a degree she’d no sooner summoned it than it melted into a puddle.

She was so wet. Drenched, in fact. She could feel it against her intimate underthings, absorbed by clean cotton.

Gods, but she was in trouble.

His breath panted out of him in puffs of warmth, fragrant with wine. As they moved together, devoured each other, Francesca heard it begin to catch in his chest. And then his throat. Moans of desire at first, and then demands.

His fingers found her garters before she’d even been aware they’d slipped beneath her skirts.

“No!” She clenched her thighs, lifting herself away from him. “That is. I mean. Not yet. I don’t want this to be finished too soon. Not in the carriage.”

She needed to get into his house.

“Oh, Countess.” A soft chuff growled out of him,perhaps a laugh but not quite. He brushed his rough cheek against her smooth one before dipping to breathe in the scent of her neck. “I plan for ye to finishmanytimes before this night is over. Why not start here?” His fingers crept no higher, but their calluses abraded at the flash of thigh between her drawers and her stockings.

“I can feel yer heat through these,” he breathed, toying with her undergarment. “Ye’d come so fast. So hard. I’d have to carry ye upstairs and give ye time to recover before ye did it again.”

Francesca had to gather every bit of her will not to give in to the cajoling in his voice. She reached down and took his wrists, unable to meet her fingers around them. He allowed her to lift them from her thighs and imprison them out wide against the seat back, like a penitent nailed to a Roman cross.

“I want to wait,” she leaned in to say against his ear. “To come with you. I want to watch your pleasure.”

He made a short noise of amusement. Not quite a laugh, not quite a groan. “Is that what ye like, my lady? To watch?”

“I like a great many things,” she hedged, boldly stopping his lips with her own. Taking his kiss from him while keeping him a willing prisoner.

He could have overpowered her at any time, but it seemed to please him to indulge her.

She counted upon that indulgence to save her later.

The carriage stopped rather abruptly, nearly sending Francesca tumbling off his lap. Drake caught her, and she righted herself, leaping away from him before the footman turned the latch of the door.

The same footman accompanied them up the stepsand acted the butler, letting them into the redbrick row house.

“Thank you, Howard.” Drake nodded to him.

The marquess resided close to her own terrace, though Francesca didn’t remark upon it as he swept her through the dark, quiet grand entry toward the marble stairs.

White sheets covered everything, as if his home had been furnished with ghosts. Francesca paused at the door to a long dining room with a forlorn table. “How long have you been in residence here?”

“I’m only visiting for a short time. I’ll be bound for Edinburgh soon, unless I’ve a reason to abide.” The look he gave her brimmed with meaning, and something else.

Something so opaque she couldn’t identify it.

Despite her suspicions, the warmth of a blush spread through her extremities.