Page 15 of The Duke’s Defiant Angel (Dukes Gone Dirty #1)

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H e should never have brought her here.

Raff tried to keep his delectable bride in his sights, but the crush was unmanageable. It seemed everyone wanted a word with the new duchess.

“Married life suits you,” Hayden said beside him. “Although, I’ll admit I hadn’t expected you to still be this smitten with the chit.” He snapped his fingers in front of Raff’s face. “Stop gawking at your own wife, man. It’s embarrassing.”

He turned his glare to his friend. “She’s not some chit. She’s my wife. My duchess. And she’s currently being hounded by half of the guests at this party.”

“She’ll have to learn how to manage that,” Hayden said with a shrug. “Might as well start tonight.”

Hayden had a point, and Raff knew it. He couldn’t fret over his wife like some nursemaid. She was a grown woman, as she was so quick to point out. She didn’t need him fussing over her.

And yet…

“Hold my drink,” he said, thrusting his glass in Hayden’s direction.

“Wonderful,” his friend intoned. “I finally have a friend to keep me company at one of these dreadful society events, and I’m left to hold his brandy.”

Evangeline’s mother reached her side, and he could practically see his angel’s relief. He took his drink back, his attention returning to Hayden.

Wariness stole over him. Guilt, too. He’d been so lost in his own concerns, he’d nearly forgotten that Malcolm was contending with a runaway fiancée.

Hayden cut him a curious look.

“Has he found her yet?” Raff asked.

Hayden shook his head. “Haven’t you heard?” Hayden wasn’t drunk tonight—at least not visibly. Not yet. But his devil-may-care grin had been firmly in place until now.

Now his expression was alarmingly grim.

“Heard what?”

“Malcolm’s father died.”

“What?” Raff turned to his friend in shock. Not horror by any means. The old earl was as cruel as they came. His death would likely be welcome news.

But then again, the death of a parent, cruel or otherwise, must still be a blow.

“What happened?” he asked.

Hayden looked around to ensure they weren’t being overheard. “I don’t know the details. I imagine his death will be announced in all the papers tomorrow, but Malcolm didn’t share many details in his missive. All I know is that there was an accident, and it somehow involved his bride-to-be. Malcolm said he’ll be back once he’d dealt with the estate and legalities.”

Raff exhaled loudly. “So Malcolm is the new Earl of Fallenmore.”

“It would seem so.”

Raff turned to him. “And his fiancée? Did he find her?”

Hayden arched a brow. “She’d left him for another, it would seem. I suspect there’s a story there, but we’ll have to wait until he’s back to learn more.”

Raff shook his head. “Lost his father and his bride-to-be. Poor Malcolm.”

“Indeed.”

To see Hayden so grim left Raff ill at ease. “What can we do?”

Hayden blew out a long sigh. “Not much until he returns. I imagine the scandal sheets and the newspapers will be all over this story.”

Raff grunted. “Whatever he needs,” he promised.

Hayden nodded. It had always been this way between the four of them. Little family to rely on, they could rely on each other.

They’d been Raff’s only family until Evangeline. He turned to seek her out. His Evangeline, who was?—

He frowned. Where was she?

He spotted her with her mother, still, but a gentleman was speaking to her. He was too close by far, and his smile far too ingratiating.

Instant dislike had Raff growling. His spine stiffened, and his muscles tightened as he spoke to Hayden without removing his gaze from his wife. “Who’s that talking to Evangeline?”

Hayden craned his neck for a better look. “Oh him? He’s that baron’s second son. A fortune hunter, from the sounds of it. What’s his name again…” He snapped. “Foley, that’s it. Albert Foley.”

Fire swept through Raff’s blood and singed his lungs.

“Don’t tell me you’re jealous, old man,” Hayden said with a laugh. But his laugh faded fast at whatever he saw on Raff’s face. “She’s your wife, Raff. And she’s in good company.” He leaned in closer and lowered his voice. “Don’t go making a scene. She won’t thank you for it.”

“What do I care what she wishes?” he snapped, already moving away from his friend.

Hayden was right. He knew that. Some logical part of his brain was still functioning, but it was drowned out by a sickening roar of blood in his ears.

Jealousy.

Bloody hell, so this was what jealousy felt like.

He wasn’t proud of himself as he reached her side and claimed her arm, but he couldn’t stop himself from glaring at the other man either. “If you’ll excuse us,” he said to no one in particular.

Evangeline gave a little squeak of surprise before falling into step beside him as he led her through the crowd.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

The alarm in her voice had him softening slightly. “We need to speak,” he said. “In private.”

She asked no more questions, and if she were frightened by the fact that he was dragging her into a darkened hall leading to the Bermans’ private quarters, she kept silent.

It wasn’t until he opened a door leading to a pitch-black room that she finally spoke.

“Raff, is...is something the matter?” Her voice was breathless.

Was that fear or guilt?

He rounded on her, clapping his hands against the door on either side of her head.

His sweet angel gazed up at him, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, moonlight spilling in behind him the only light by which to see.

“Was that your lover?” he demanded.

She gasped, her eyes widening...but she didn’t deny it.

“He dared to speak to you when you are my wife?” He barely recognized his voice, it was laced with such rage.

He did not do anger. He’d never been given to fits of temper. Why would he be when he’d always had his way?

Anything he’d wanted, he’d gotten. Even her. His angel.

He’d snared her all right. He’d made her his duchess as he’d planned.

But was she his?

His heart slammed against his chest. Would she ever truly be his if she still loved another?

In an effort to calm himself, his gaze dipped down. She glowed in the moonlight. The bare skin of her decolletage a teasing glimmer of what he’d find if he tugged down her bodice.

His hand cupped her breast, making her gasp anew.

“Mine,” he muttered through clenched teeth.

She nodded quickly. “Yours,” she whispered. A trembling hand came up to touch his cheek, and for a moment, that overwhelming anger and jealousy was replaced by sanity.

She was his. He turned his face to kiss her palm, guilt warring with anger at having frightened her. He shut his eyes against a torrent of emotions he could not name.

Anger, yes. Jealousy, definitely. A possessive surge he’d never felt before. But something deeper. Stronger.

Something that had him tugging her into his arms, kissing her fiercely as if he might mark his claim with the force of his kiss.

His insides clenched as she opened for him willingly, her tongue meeting his with the same ferocity as a moan sounded from deep in her throat.

He had her pressed against the door now, her chest arching as she pressed her soft, warm breast into his grasping palm.

He ground his hardness into her soft belly, relishing in the sound of her whimper in his ear.

This was wrong, and he knew it. She was his wife. A lady. A duchess. He wasn’t supposed to tup her hard in some back room of a ball like some tawdry whore.

“I want you, Angel,” he rasped, his teeth bare against her neck as they ground together, trying to get closer

“Then take me,” she whispered.

He stilled, certain he’d heard wrong. When he pulled back, all he could see were her wet, swollen lips and her eyes, dark in the moonlight and lit with an emotion he couldn’t name.

He didn’t want to name it.

“He can never have you,” he said, his voice harsher than intended.

She flinched, but her chin came up as she nodded. “I am yours, Raff. I know that. And I would never break my vows.”

That weight of anger eased, but it wasn’t enough. He gripped her chin, tilting her head back for another deep, searing kiss.

His other hand gripped her waist, and he pressed the full length of his body against hers.

He believed her. She was a good girl, a sweet young lady who didn’t break her vows. Not even when he’d told her he had every intention of doing so once she was with child.

He pressed his forehead to hers, their labored breaths mingling as his hands gripped her skirts. “Are you wet for me, Angel?”

Her gasp thrust her tits upward, and he kissed the top of those luscious mounds as he made short work of hitching her skirts up to her waist. Her undergarments he ripped, eliciting another moan from his wife.

“Do you like it like that?” he asked. Disbelief filled his voice, but the moment his fingers slid between her folds, he had his answer.

“Yes,” she hissed, her hips jerking as he thrust two fingers inside her dripping wet heat.

He nearly came right then and there in his breeches, like a youth at the feel of her excitement. “You like that you’re mine, love?” he taunted.

“Y-yes,” she breathed, her hips rolling as he slid his fingers in and out. With his free hand, he tugged down her bodice until her breasts spilled over, and he wasted no time taking a sweet nipple in his mouth to suckle.

She cried out, her hands in his hair, holding him close.

He suckled and fondled those lush, soft tits until she was moaning too loudly—so loudly they might be caught.

He didn’t care. Not so long as she rode his fingers like a wanton mistress eager to ride his shaft.

“I’m going to take you right here and now,” he promised, his lips close to her ear.

“Yes,” she hissed again.

“I’m going to take what’s mine,” he added through gritted teeth.

She tugged on his hair to pull his head back, meeting his gaze. “Yours.”

It was a promise. Another vow. But as he released his cock from his breeches, as he drove it into her entrance ruthlessly, slamming her up against the wall and making her cry out with pleasure, he finally understood.

She’d given him her body, and she was too good to break that vow.

He wanted her body, yes, but he also wanted her heart and her soul.

He wanted all of her.

As she met his thrusts with frantic hip movements of her own, this reality slammed into him with a heartbreaking jolt.

He wanted all of her. Because she already owned all of him.

His body. His soul.

His bloody heart.