To Desire a Wicked Duke (Courtship Wars)

“Oh? What do you do in the evenings?”

“After dinner I usually spend time with Mrs. Croft, assuming I can lure her from her studio. If not, I keep myself occupied writing letters or with needlework. And I frequently read before bedtime.”

She also often wrote in her diary, but she was not about to tell Rotham that, especially when he had recently become the prime subject of her private musings. She’d written four pages about him just since yesterday, after her life had suddenly turned upside down.

“Did you bring any reading material with you?” Rotham asked.

“Yes, but it is in my own bedchamber.”

“It won’t do for you to go traipsing down the corridor to fetch it.”

“I suppose not,” Tess conceded.

“We can always sit here and converse.”

She didn’t think that a wise idea, not when she was so conscious of his bare chest. She drank another long swallow of brandy and tried not to wince at the searing sting in her throat.

“Do you mean to leave your hair pinned up like that?” Rotham asked.

“I hadn’t thought about it.”

“You should take it down.”

“Perhaps so,” Tess agreed. When he politely retrieved the brandy glass from her and set it down, she reached up and pulled the pins from her coiffure, sending waves of glossy dark hair tumbling over her shoulders.

Rotham’s gaze arrested as he studied her. “I have never seen your hair down before,” he remarked, sounding as if the sight appealed to him.

He slowly rose to his feet then. Tess froze in place when he reached out to finger a long tress.

His hand shifted to her cheek next and stroked lightly. Tess shivered. It unsettled her intensely to be touched by this man.

It unsettled her more to think Rotham might kiss her, but she suspected that was precisely his design when he gently lured her chin upward with his thumb.

His gray eyes held her spellbound for a long moment. She could hear her own heart hammering as her gaze wandered to his mouth. Before yesterday she’d thought his lips would be hard like the rest of him, but now she knew better.

When he bent his head to let that hot velvet mouth graze hers, Tess sighed and leaned toward him involuntarily … yet somehow she found the willpower to turn her head to one side and press her palms against his bare chest.

“You said you would treat our union as a contract,” she exclaimed breathlessly. “Kissing is no part of any contract.”

“No, but it is the best way to vanquish your fear of me.”

“I do not fear you, Rotham.”

He emitted a soft sound of amusement.

“I do not,” Tess insisted. “I am suffering the normal sensibilities every young lady has on her wedding night.”

“I told you, I won’t do anything you don’t wish me to do.”

“You are kissing me now when I don’t wish it.”

“Are you certain?”

Of course she wasn’t certain. She only knew that she didn’t want a disastrous repeat of yesterday, when she’d completely lost her senses.

Yet it was happening again now, just being in such close proximity to Rotham. How could she possibly think when his fingertips were drawing tingling patterns on her throat? When the warm swirl of his breath was caressing her lips and stealing her breath?

Tess felt a vivid shock of awareness when Rotham covered her mouth with his again, and yet unlike yesterday, his kiss was soft and sensual this time. She hadn’t expected such tenderness from him, but that was exactly what he gave her. He rubbed his lips over hers, measuring their softness, inducing a fresh shiver of delight to slide down her spine and gather low in her belly.