His opponent began trying with all her might to remove herself from his grasp. She twisted, pulled, stomped on his instep, and clawed at him. He remained immovable. Whoever she was, she did not know the part of him that knew the capacity to feel pain had died a long bloody time ago.
“Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my study?” he demanded, fury surging through him.
How dare anyone have the gall to invade his territory? To so trespass against him?
If it was a chamber maid, he would see her dismissed. If it was a whore, he would never tup her again. She did not belong in the last place where he could find some semblance of peace. He wanted to know why she was there, and then he wanted her gone, damn it.
But all she gave him was her silence and her desperate fight. Whoever she was, she was a bloody hellcat. When her hand escaped his grasp and her nails raked his cheek, the last thread of his patience snapped.
“Cease, damn you.” He caught her wrist in a punishing grip. She refused to heed him, continuing her struggle.
His head pounded, reminding him of his need for that whisky. Reminding him this banshee was keeping him from the only thing that kept him sane. And he had endured quite enough. He wanted an answer, and he wanted it now.
When she refused to concede defeat, the beast within him roared to life. The lines between the man he had once been and the man he was now, between reality and nightmare, life and death, all blurred into one indistinct mass. He forgot any reason why he ought to treat his opponent with care. He forgot she was female. That he was a duke and ought to behave with at least a modicum of caution and reason.
They fell to the carpet as one, she on her back and he atop her. His thighs straddled hers, trapping her against the floor as he gripped her wrists and pinned them above her head.
He leaned forward so his weight kept her immobile. “Say something.”
She writhed beneath him, continuing her ridiculous attempts at escape. But her actions only served to brush her breasts over his chest and to grind her pelvis into his. With only the thin barrier of his dressing gown and the accommodating bit of muslin she wore separating his cock from the undeniable heat of her mound, he went rigid.
“Christ Jesus.”
She felt bloody good. Bloody right.
“Please, Your Grace. You are hurting me.”
The voice, hushed yet familiar, sliced through the fog of rage and lust clouding his mind. He knew that mellifluous tone, the sweet huskiness. Knew the lush temptation of the breasts swelling beneath his chest.
For he had fallen into them headfirst before the darkness had claimed him.
Memories returned. He recalled conducting an interview with a flame-haired siren while soused. His cock remembered as well, for if possible, it went even harder than it already was, his ballocks tightening as lustful reveries assailed him. All too vividly, he could imagine her riding his cock, her heavy breasts begging to be sucked…
But he could not tup the new governess on the floor of his study in the depths of night. Nor could he tup her at all, curse it. She was not his to defile, no matter how much he longed to debauch her. And oh, how he longed with her beneath him, her sweet, womanly body curved into his. Temptation had ever been his weakness.
No. He must not.
He banished the unwanted thoughts from his mind, willed his cock to wilt, and asked the looming question.
“Tumblebow,” he growled. “What in the devil are you doing in my study?”
Chapter Four
The Duke ofWhitley was atop her. And scantily clad. And—good, sweet heavens—aroused. Though she had not long been a wife before being made a widow by war, she was certainly not ignorant about the male anatomy.
One thing was certain, she was even less prepared for the magnitude of Kilross’s request than she had supposed. For nothing could have primed her for this moment in the dark with an irate duke settled between her thighs as if it was where he belonged.
What a miserable thief she made. She had been caught before she had even left the chamber with the documents she’d pilfered from his desk.
Think, Jacinda. How can you extract yourself from this predicament?
Moreover, how could she quell the disturbing reaction his large, lean body pressing into hers caused? The Duke of Whitley was a reprobate and a drunkard, and according to Kilross, a despicable coward who had betrayed his best friend and caused his death. If he had no qualms about orchestrating the death of the Marquess of Searle, what would he do to her should he discover the reason for her presence in his study?
She forced the chill of a frigid winter’s day into her voice as she spoke, taking care to hold herself very still lest further movement incite him. Rumors of his dalliances and bedchamber prowess were abundant. He did not strike her as the sort who enjoyed ravishment, but one could never exercise too much caution.
“My surname is Turnbow, Your Grace,” she informed him. “And as for your query, I was under the impression that I was in the library.” With great effort, she kept the breathlessness from her voice.
To her dismay, he neither removed his person from her nor released her wrists, which remained pinned to the Aubusson above her head, thrusting her breasts into his chest in a most disconcerting fashion. How she wished she were more prepared to do battle. She had nothing save her wits with which to defend herself.
