Page 24 of The Spinster and Her Rakish Duke (The Athena Society #3)

“ C ome,” Ewan said quietly, curling his hand around Samantha’s trembling fingers. “Dance with me.”

Her eyes searched his face as if trying to gauge the sincerity of his offer—or perhaps his intentions. But when she didn’t pull away, he exhaled and drew her gently from the shadowed alcove.

The ballroom was still alight with candle fire and laughter, the orchestra easing into another waltz as though nothing had just transpired behind the potted palms.

As if Comerford hadn’t dared lay hands on his wife. As if Ewan himself hadn’t nearly lost control and bloodied a man in front of half the peerage.

He led her to the dance floor, placing one hand at the small of her back and taking her other in his, drawing her close—closer than the steps required, closer than propriety allowed. He did not care much for society right then. Only the woman in his arms mattered to him in that moment.

“You’re shaking,” he murmured, barely managing to restrain his rage.

“I’m fine,” Samantha replied too quickly.

His jaw ticked. “You’re not.”

She didn’t argue, but she didn’t elaborate either. Her posture remained taut, her face carefully composed. But her pulse—he could feel it fluttering erratically under his palm where it pressed against her spine.

The music swelled, and they moved in tandem—one, two, three—circling through the crowd as if nothing had happened.

“Now tell me what that bastard said to you.” Ewan said, voice low, threading steel beneath the question.

Samantha’s gaze snapped to his face before flickering away to fix on a point over his shoulder. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.” He said, the words so quiet, they were lethal.

But she lifted her chin at that, eyes flashing. “Why?”

He blinked. “What?”

“Why does it matter to you what he said?” Her voice was quiet but cutting. “Why would it matter at all, Your Grace?”

The formality in her tone was like a blade to the gut. He recoiled slightly, his grip tightening instinctively. “You’re my wife.”

“In name only.”

“Samantha.” Ewan loved that his wife was stubborn, and willful.

He couldn’t get enough of those beautiful blue eyes of hers flash with indignation, but right in this moment, he wasn’t playing around.

“We both know you only came to my defense because of appearances,” she continued, voice trembling. “Because someone else dared to touch what’s yours. That’s all it is to you, isn’t it? Possession. The performance of it all.”

He stopped mid-step, forcing her to a halt with him in the center of the dance floor. Other couples spun around them, some casting curious glances, others whispering behind gloved hands. Ewan didn’t care.

“I defended you,” he said evenly, “because that man disrespected you. Because he upset you. Because the idea of him touching you made me want to put my fist through his ugly visage.”

Her eyes widened, but before she could speak, the music ended. The final notes of the waltz faded into a round of applause. She tore herself from his arms as if burned.

“I need some air.” She said, scrambling back, away from him.

Ewan didn’t like how eager she seemed to put some distance between them, and he had no intention of letting her run away from him this time.

Not here. And certainly not after what had just happened. Besides, he also harbored a fear that should she leave him to his own devices, he would only spend the next few hours hunting Comerford down for the simple pleasure of breaking his nose, over and over again.

“Samantha—” He called after her, but she was already moving, her skirts sweeping behind her as she fled the ballroom.

He stood there, breathing hard, ignoring the buzz of murmured gossip rising like a tide all around him. Then he turned and followed.

He was going to find his wife.

He found her in the Ashworths’ library. The heavy door stood ajar, and inside, moonlight filtered through tall windows, illuminating shelves lined with leather-bound volumes and a chaise in the far corner.

She stood with her back to him, one hand braced on the mantel, the other pressed to her mouth. Her shoulders trembled.

“Samantha.” He breathed, and she stiffened immediately.

“Don’t.” Her voice was raw. “Don’t pretend to care.”

Ewan knew that he’d done a terrible job thus far of accepting his own attraction towards this woman and had done his best to keep her at arm’s length despite the fact that he could not resist her. And now, he intended to correct that error.

He said, “I’m not pretending.”

She turned then, eyes bright with unshed tears and rage. “Oh please! You only want me falling obediently into your bed. You say you care, but only when someone else threatens your control over me.”

He crossed the room in three strides. “Is that what you think this is? About control?”

“It’s always been about control,” she spat. “From the moment we married. You’ve kept your distance, your walls up. You don’t speak unless it’s duty. And yet the moment another man so much as touches me, suddenly, I’m yours?”

“You are mine.” His voice was quiet but firm.

“I am not property.” She hissed at him and, by God, she looked so beautiful, he could barely contain himself.

Already, he wanted to crush her to him and kiss her senseless.

“I never said you were.” he replied, counting down the minutes until his control would snap.

“Then what am I to you, Ewan? A duchess? An obligation? A warm body to take when the mood strikes?” Her breath hitched. “Because I can’t—I won’t—be only that.”

He stared at her, stunned into silence. It was his fault that she thought this way. That this beautiful, proud, and headstrong woman would ever think that she was somehow nothing special because of his own foolishness. It was his fault, and he had to rectify the mistake immediately.

Driven by that urgency, he stepped forward and cupped her face in his hands.

“You’re not,” he said hoarsely, shaking his head with a vehemence that obviously shocked her. “You’re not just any of those things.”

She blinked, confused, angry, hurting. It was obvious that his words weren’t the ones she’d expected to hear. “Then what?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, his heart pounding in his chest, a staccato melody against the ridges of his ribcage. “But damn me, I do care. More than I ever wanted to. Definitely even more than you think I do.”

Her lips—those weapons of great temptation—parted, and Ewan stifled the urge to let out a groan even as his member twitched within the confines of his trousers.

“You—” She struggled to get the words out, but none came.

He could see the struggle in her eyes… the struggle to believe him.

But it was all right, because he intended to make her believe him.

“I care when you look at me like you’d rather be anywhere else. I care when you walk past me in the corridor and won’t meet my eyes. I care when you tremble in another man’s arms and won’t let me hold you instead.”

Her expression wavered, cracked.

“I care,” he repeated, voice thick, “and I haven’t the faintest idea what to do with it.”

Samantha exhaled a shuddering breath, her defiance softening, melting.

“You… rakes with your pretty words,” she said, but there was no conviction in her voice, as if she no longer believed it to be true. “I see how you seduce women out of their gowns.”

To that, Ewan chuckled, even as hard color suffused his cheeks. “You are the only woman I want to seduce out of her gown.” He drawled, his pulse skittering across his nerve endings. “Is it working, my tigress?”

Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and he saw the moment her restraint snapped.

Their mouths crashed together, teeth and lips and heat. She shoved him back toward the shelves, and he went willingly, his arms caging her against him as he devoured her like a starving man.

Her fingers tore at his cravat, tugging until it came loose. He pushed her cloak off her shoulders letting it fall forgotten to the carpet. Their kisses turned frenzied, bruising, her hands tugging his shirt from his waistband.

“Samantha,” he groaned into her mouth. “Tell me you want this.”

“I want this,” she gasped, biting his lip. “Don’t you dare stop.”

He spun them, backing her toward the chaise as they fumbled through layers of silk and wool.

He sat first, pulling her down onto his lap, her skirts bunched around her thighs, her legs astride his.

She gasped as their bodies aligned, the sharpest ache blossoming in her core at the hard length pressing between them.

She buried her face in his neck, trembling. “I hate how much I want you.”

“I don’t,” he growled, hands clutching her hips. “I want you exactly like this.”

Their lips met again, but this time the kiss deepened—less frantic now, more reverent. His hands slid over her bodice, loosening it with patient skill until he could bare her shoulders, his mouth trailing kisses down her collarbone. She arched against him, fingers tangled in his hair.

“Ewan,” she whimpered, as his mouth found the swell of her breast.

“Yes, my tigress?” He hummed, groaning low in his throat when her fingers dug welts into the skin of his back, his shoulders trembling.

“Please.” She begged.

He didn’t need more encouragement. One hand slipped beneath her skirts, finding her soft flesh, and he swore under his breath at the heat and dampness there.

“You’re already soaked for me,” he rasped, breath hot against her chest before he leaned in to lick at her skittering pulse.

His fingers stroked her heat through her underwear once, twice, three times, feeling around her bush with wonder.

Samantha made a choking noise in her throat. “Don’t tease me, Ewan.” She hissed, her hips rocking against his fingers, driving him wild.

“Oh, believe me, my dear, I am not.” He groaned in response, teeth scraping her throat. “I cannot .”

She gasped as his fingers slipped past the barrier of her drawers and found her slick and wanting. He stroked her gently, then with firmer pressure, until her hips began to move faster and faster against his hand, breath coming in shallow pants.

“Let me see you fall apart,” he whispered, watching her through heavy-lidded eyes.

At his words, her face suffused with the sweetest pleasure before she shattered, body clenching around his fingers as she moaned his name in a broken, desperate cry.

Ewan held her through it, murmuring into her hair, his own body taut with restraint. When she finally went limp against him, he withdrew his hand slowly, reverently.

She lifted her head after a long moment, eyes dazed. And he held her gaze as he sucked his fingers into his mouth, moaning as the taste of her burst on his tongue again.

Samantha flushed scarlet, and she shuddered. “Oh God. Why do you do this to me?” The question came out as a whine that he felt, deep within his soul. Because he was just as strung up as she was.

Just as desperate .

“Because I can’t help it.” He said, his own want thick in his voice. “Because you have thoroughly bewitched me, my tigress, and I cannot get enough. And I don’t know if I ever will.”

Their foreheads pressed together, and for a few heartbeats, they simply breathed each other in. After a few breath exchanges, he kissed her again, softer this time, as though sealing something sacred between them. Then, reluctantly, he pulled back.

“As much as I would like to take you here again and again,” he said, voice thick with a cross between lust and reverence, “I want you in our home. In our bed.”

She swallowed hard, her throat bobbing with the action. “Ewan …”

“We’re leaving,” he decided then, knowing full well that he was not going to last the hour with the way his member strained within the confines of his breeches. “ Now . Ralph can see Percy home.”

Samantha hesitated, then nodded slowly, her cheeks still flushed red from her release. “All right then.”

He helped her rise, gently adjusting the bodice of her gown, his fingers lingering. She trembled under his touch but didn’t pull away.

They left the library together, silent but close; his hand resting at her waist, her eyes flickering at him every few steps as if to confirm he was real, that this moment was real.

By the time they exited into the cool night, the carriage waiting, neither of them looked back.