While the Duke Was Sleeping (The Rogue Files #1)(33)

“Duly noted.”

“Did you not hear me warn you to keep quiet?” he growled, evidently moving on to the next subject.

“Indeed. I seem to recall you ordered me to hold my tongue. Maybe if you had not spoken to me like a senseless child—”

“Should I have taken a few minutes to politely and gently explain to you that I did not want to draw undue attention to your person in front of those ruffians? Rather counterproductive.”

He was maddening, trying to make her feel dense. And foolish! True, he was succeeding but damn if she would let him know it. Her eyes burned but she blinked the fire from them.

His head canted in a way that reminded her of a predator right before it pounced on its victim. “I’ve saved your life twice now in so many days, Miss Fairchild. How on earth have you managed to arrive at your age unscathed?”

She breathed through her nose, controlling her ire. She’d never been a temperamental individual, but this man brought out the worst in her. “You know as well as I do that they weren’t about murder. Nothing as dire as that,” she said in an attempt to make light of the night’s brush with danger.

These words only seemed to enrage him. His eyes went black. He thrust his face closer, his voice a hiss as he lifted one hand from the wall by her ear and lightly circled her bare throat. Not strangling, although she imagined he would like to do that very thing. No, his touch was gentle, his thumb brushing the side of her neck in the most distracting manner.

“What are you—” she started to say.

He cut her off. “You cannot be that na?ve. How could you mistake their intent when they said they liked you?” His gaze traveled over her insolently. Not that he could see much of her beneath her voluminous cloak, but she felt stripped naked. “They sought to relieve you of something far more valuable than a mere bauble. I’m certain that clever brain of yours can surmise to what I refer.”

She did, but she wouldn’t humor him with a response.

He continued, “It’s one thing to let them take your ring and my money . . . another thing entirely to let them put a hand on you.”

Her breath hitched at the sudden deep timbre of his voice. She read menace in his eyes.

He sounded—and looked—as though he could kill for her. She’d never felt that before. Never felt that there was anyone out there who would go to extreme lengths for her. It was strange. It filled her with an anxious giddiness and that terrified her. She did not need to be feeling that way. Especially not with him.

“Poppy?” The hushed whisper of her name—the first time she had ever heard him say her Christian name—only made that giddiness spread through her in the most awful, traitorous way.

“That’s Miss Fairchurch to you,” she reprimanded, her voice gentle and lacking all heat.

He lowered his head. “Poppy,” he repeated as though she had not corrected him. More than likely he simply did not care. She knew that he put little value into her wishes.

If he cared about honoring her wishes, then he would not be with her at this moment. But he was. And his presence here might very well have saved her. Again. The fact only irritated her. Absurd, she knew, but there it was nonetheless. She was now indebted to him for her life no less than two times.

Her pulse hammered at her throat. No doubt he could feel it with his hand on her. His fingers moved again, grazing her skin, his touch warm through his gloves. Hot actually. She felt singed, burned at his caress. Any attempt to speak was impossible in that moment. Not with him looking at her as though he wanted to strangle her.

Or do something else to her.

He truly must hate her. No one had ever touched her thusly. Or addressed her so boldly or looked at her with such intensity. His green eyes looked dark. Black eyes. Pirate eyes.

“No more,” he warned. “No more venturing out alone at night.”

Her chest swelled on an indignant breath. Who did he think he was? “I don’t take commands from you.”

“Hell’s teeth, woman. Do you ever simply admit you’ve made a mistake and back down?”

“To you?” she scoffed, glaring at this bossy male before her and wondering how it had come to this. Yes, he had a point. She wasn’t typically stubborn, but glaring up at his angry face, she couldn’t give an inch. Everything inside her rebelled at the notion.

A few days ago the Duke of Autenberry was merely a fantasy and this brother of his not even known to her.

“You are no one in my life,” she said in a voice fraught with tension. “You cannot tell me what to—”

“Oh, I can,” he bit out, his voice a gravelly purr that abraded her skin and sparked something inside her. His hand slid around her nape and hauled her closer. His pirate’s eyes swallowed her up and forced all the air out from her lungs in one great rush. “I will.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but his mouth covered hers. Claimed her. It was the only word for it. This was a taking.

And she the taken.





Chapter 13




Struan Mackenzie smothered any words she might have thought to say.

In fact, thoughts were wild and fleeting once his mouth touched hers. Sensations and emotions, however, abounded.

Shock. Outrage. The utter strangeness of it all.

Her head spun. She’d been kissed before. This shouldn’t feel so totally foreign to her. But kissing had never been this before.