Duke of Desire (Maiden Lane #12)(47)

And in the corner were the initials R.d’C.

This was how he saw her.

When she looked up at him he was watching her, his crystalline gray eyes wary.

“I found this,” she began, “in your trunk. It’s yours, isn’t it?”

He inclined his head.

She stepped closer to him. “These sketches are very good. Who taught you?”

He swallowed. “My father.”

She nodded. “I saw his sketchbook as well.”

At that his eyebrows snapped together. “What?”

“When I went into the ducal bedroom. His sketchbook was there.” She inhaled. “I didn’t like his drawings, but I like yours.” She glanced up at him. “Even if they all are of me.”

He didn’t answer. He stood there like a solid block of ice and said nothing. If he hadn’t been watching her, she would’ve thought he wasn’t listening.

His very serenity maddened her.

“This entire book is full of sketches of me,” she said again, her voice tight. “Horseback riding, walking, dancing. Laughing and simply smiling. Profiles and full face.” She looked down at the book, turning the pages. “You had to have been following me. Following me for months. Why?”

He blinked. Blinked. “I met you at a ball in which I’d gone to rendezvous with members of the Lords of Chaos. I … was worried for you.”

“Worried?” She threw up her hands. “Worried doesn’t explain page after page of my face in your book.”

He turned, putting his back to her. “I found you an interesting subject.”

“Don’t lie to me!” She went around his back to face him. His nostrils were flared, his mouth pressed into a thin line. He tried to retreat, but she followed. “You made me think that you were indifferent to me. That I was a burden that you never wanted to take to your bed. When all along,” she whispered. “All along you had a sketchbook full of pictures of me. A man doesn’t do that because of worry or an interesting subject.”

By the time she’d come to the end of her rant she was right up against his bare chest, searching those icy eyes—except they weren’t very icy at the moment.

Not at all.

She stretched on tiptoe and pressed the sketchbook to his chest, holding it there with the flat of her palm. “Tell me the truth, Raphael. Now. Tonight. No more evasions and lies. What is it you feel for me? Is it affection—or merely indifference?”

He finally moved then, snatching the sketchbook from her hand and tossing it to a chair.

He wrapped one arm around her waist and fisted her hair with the other hand, bending over her until she had to grasp those broad shoulders or fall. “Believe me, Wife, the last thing I feel for you is indifference.”

Then his mouth was on hers, devouring her, his hot tongue demanding that she part her lips and let him into her depths.





Chapter Ten




“Have you strange knowledge?” asked the Rock King.

“No,” Ann whispered.

“Have you magic?” mocked the Rock King.

“No.” Ann closed her eyes. “All I have is myself.”

“Then you will have to do,” he said. “Do you promise to be my wife for a year and a day if I bring you your sister’s heart fire?”

Ann swallowed, for the Rock King’s black eyes were cold and his voice hard. “Yes.” …

—From The Rock King





Iris tasted of red wine—the red wine she must have drunk at dinner—and all the reasons he shouldn’t do this fled his mind. A vital chain broke in his psyche and everything he’d held back, everything he’d restrained with all his might, was suddenly set free. He surged into her mouth, desperate for the feel, for the taste of her, his wife, his duchess, his Iris. She was soft and sweet and warm and he wanted to devour her. To seize her and hold her and never let her go. The deep unfathomable well of his urges toward her frightened him, and he knew that if she became aware of them, they would frighten her as well.

But that was the thing—she wasn’t aware of them. She thought she was simply consummating their marriage or some such rot, God help them both.

She gripped his naked arms and the beast within him shuddered and stretched, claws scraping against the ground.

Dear God, he wanted this woman.

But he had to remember—to keep that human part of his mind awake and alive—that he mustn’t seed her.

Must never do as his cursed father had done.

He broke from her mouth, feeling the pulse of his cock against his breeches, and trailed his lips across her cheek to her ear. “Come with me, sweet girl.”

She blinked up at him, wide blue-gray eyes a little dazed.

He covered her mouth again before she could speak—either to consent or decline—and drew her slowly backward, step by step, toward the bed, until he hit it with the backs of his legs. He broke the kiss, looking down at her, her wet ruby lips parted, her cheeks flushed pink.

She looked edible.

“Raphael,” she whispered, his name on her lips like a plea, and something within him broke.

This wasn’t what he wanted. This wasn’t right. But it was the only thing possible and it would have to suffice because it was all he could do.