The Duke Identity (Game of Dukes #1)(26)

And hot. Dear God, she was burning up inside. His big hands splayed over her bottom, yanking her closer. His thigh wedged between her legs, the intimate invasion lodging her breath.

He nudged deeper against her sex, hitting an exquisite peak, and her breath popped free, turning into a moan as it left her lips. Her woman’s place was throbbing, aching, shockingly wet. Delirious with need, she rocked against the hard trunk of Bennett’s thigh, gasping at the blissful friction.

“God, yes,” he rasped against her lips. “Ride me.”

She couldn’t stop if she tried. As she rode his sinewy appendage, she felt another one pressing into her thigh. His male member, she realized dizzily. It was as hard and heavy as a steel pike, and when she squirmed against it, he groaned, the rumble hitting the back of her throat. His tongue pushed even deeper into her mouth, and, on instinct, she sucked— “Couldn’t make it to a bedchamber, eh?”

“Must be a tasty wench. Care to share?”

She jerked at the leering male voices, but Bennett kept her pressed against the wall, his body shielding her from view.

Without turning, he snapped, “Mind your own bloody business, or I’ll make you.”

His lethal tone was enough to make the men scurry off.

When the coast was clear, Bennett stepped back.

Panting, her lips and breasts still tingling, Tessa watched as he removed his spectacles, studiously polishing them on his shirt. Watching the care with which his large, rough hands handled the delicate frame sent a quiver through her belly.

Dazed wonder seeped through her. So this is desire.

This was what she’d understood in theory but now actually understood. She’d attributed the magnetic, pulsating energy between her and Bennett to animosity…but it wasn’t that. Or not just that. Antagonism and attraction, she realized in a flash, were two sides of the same coin.

Bennett shoved on his spectacles, met her gaze.

“What the devil was that?” he ground out.

His fury came out of nowhere. Stunned, unprepared, she scrambled for words.

“I th-thought it was a good stratagem,” she stammered. “I didn’t want to be recognized.”

Before she could gather her wits, try to articulate herself better, he cut her off.

“The next time you wish to use me as the means to an end,” he said icily, “give me some goddamned warning. Unless you wish to be taken up against the wall like a bloody trollop.”

She stared at his harsh countenance, his smoldering eyes, and humiliation churned sickly. What was I thinking? Even if her aim had been to protect her identity, it didn’t excuse the way she’d acted. The way she’d lost herself, thrown herself at Bennett… Stupidly, she’d thought that he’d enjoyed the kiss, that he felt the same vibrant, life-altering attraction that she did.

But he didn’t. He thought she was a trollop.

God, she was worse than a trollop: she was a fool.

Words forced themselves through the tight ring of her throat. “I—I’m sorry.”

“We’re leaving.” His eyes dared her to defy him as he pointed to the stairwell. “Now.”

For once, pride abandoned her. It was all she could do to hold onto her composure. Silently, fighting back the heat behind her eyes, she fled toward the exit.





9





The next evening, Harry broodingly observed the proceedings of Baroness Lucia von Friesing’s supper party. He did not want to be here. In fact, if he’d been given the choice between shopping for a new wardrobe and being where he was now, he’d have taken off like a shot to Bond Street.

The reasons behind his desire for escape were multifold.

First, the dining room was small and stuffy. The dark paneled chamber barely accommodated the intimate gathering, and Harry was as out of place as the hastily-added and mismatched china setting in front of him. Yet, for some reason, Black had insisted that he have a seat at the table rather than wait in the carriage.

The second reason was that Harry found himself taking an instant dislike of the guest of honor. His reaction confounded him; it wasn’t his nature to rush to judgement—nor to experience so strong and irrational an antipathy.

Nonetheless, the Duke of Ranelagh and Somerville set his teeth on edge.

His Grace, who went by the sobriquet of “Ransom”—what kind of bloody name was that?—occupied the place of honor next to the hostess. A thin, silver-haired woman, Baroness von Friesing was fawning over him, the jet beads on her turban quivering as she nodded at something he’d said. Her expression was as rapt as if he were explaining to her how he’d discovered the Holy Grail.

Tall and fit, the duke had dark hair and arresting features. His tawny hazel eyes, slashing brows, and sculpted cheekbones hinted at an exotic influence in his lineage. He sported a mustache and, on his chin, a small patch of hair as carefully trimmed as a garden hedge. In Harry’s opinion, the latter was an affectation that no decent Englishman should adopt unless all razors were to vanish off the face of the earth.

But facial hair wasn’t the reason for Harry’s rancor toward the duke: it was the other’s languid arrogance. Ransom never spoke but in a mocking drawl, and his gaze flicked from guest to guest, as if he couldn’t bear the sight of any of them too long. And his treatment of Tessa, his supper partner, was downright shoddy.