The Rake's Wicked Proposal

Lucian’s gaze remained fixed on her lips. ‘What mood is that, Grace…?’

She made an impatient movement. ‘You are deliberately misunderstanding me. Deliberately provoking me!’

The things Lucian had dreamt last night of doing with and to this woman were more than enough provocation for any man!

It had been barely daylight when Lucian had awoken with the taste of Grace upon his lips. The feel of her silken skin beneath his hands. The burning of her flesh pressed against his.

His body had been hard with arousal, aching, throbbing with the need to plunge into the same silken wetness he had caressed and stroked to completion a week ago. An impossibility of need that had resulted in his coming out into the grounds of Winton Hall and diving into the cold, numbing waters of the lake they now walked beside!

To no real avail, Lucian acknowledged self-derisively. Just looking at Grace now had brought a return of that throbbing coursing through his body, and the aching of his thighs was even stronger than it had been earlier this morning.

‘What of your own provocation towards me, Grace?’

Grace looked up at Lucian uncertainly. ‘I was merely offering you the opportunity, the excuse to take your leave…’ She trailed off, her uncertainty increasing as the dark intensity of Lucian’s gaze remained fixed upon her mouth.

Something blazed in those dark depths and Grace nervously moistened suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue, her breath catching and holding in her throat as she found it impossible to look away from the dark arrogance of Lucian’s face—as memories of the last time the two of them had been alone together caused the colour to flare hotly in her cheeks.

Even the trees about them seemed to still, the birds to fall silent. Not a sound was to be heard now but their own breathing—Grace’s soft and uneven, Lucian’s barely discernible to her, as she realised that the strange whooshing noise in her ears was the sound of her own blood coursing through her veins.

She gave an abrupt, desperate shake of her head. ‘Lucian, we cannot—’

‘I have to, Grace!’ he groaned, even as he took her into his arms and crushed her body against his. ‘Can you not feel how much I have to?’ he encouraged huskily.

Oh, yes, Grace could feel how much he wanted her. How could she not, when Lucian’s arousal was pressed so intimately against her? When an answering heat throbbed between her own thighs?

Grace made one last attempt at sanity. ‘We cannot be private here, Lucian. There are the estate workers. The gardeners. Anyone could come along and find us here together!’

His face had darkened. ‘Are those your only reasons for refusing me, Grace?’

‘I am not refusing you,’ she protested heatedly, achingly. ‘How can you think that when only a week ago I—I asked you to show me—to teach me how to— ’ She broke off, her cheeks burning at the memory of how she had pleaded with Lucian to show her how to give him the pleasure he had given her.

Lucian’s lips were against her throat, hot and demanding as he tasted every inch of its creamy length. His tongue was seeking out the sensitive hollow at its base, sending quivers of pleasure through Grace’s already aroused body.

‘I do not intend to say no this time, Grace,’ he promised gruffly, his breath warm against her skin. ‘You shall have all of me. As I shall have all of you…’

‘Hello, there!’

Grace sprang away from Lucian as if burnt, her cheeks paling as she gave him one last stricken glance before turning to straighten her hair. She watched Francis Wynter stroll down the pathway towards them with long easy strides, a relaxed smile curving his lips as he neared them.

To Grace’s surprise, once Francis had recovered from the obvious shock he had experienced at the death of his eldest brother he had become passably pleasant to her, and gently kind to the Duchess—even going so far as to apologise to Grace and Lucian for the discomfort he had caused them in London. His manner towards Darius was a different matter, of course, but that strained relationship seemed to have survived from childhood, with no hope of it ever changing.

‘Grace—St Claire,’ Francis greeted them lightly. ‘Beautiful day, is it not?’ He looked almost handsome with his hair lightly ruffled by the breeze. ‘I endeavour to walk this pathway about the lake every day when I am staying at Winton Hall. Of course you will remember the way we all played here as boys, St Claire..?’