Annalise sighed in exasperation. “And the gentleman on the chestnut?”
“Consumption,” he said gravely. “Highly contagious. We should move on before the wind shifts.”
Before she could argue, he took her by the hand and pulled her along to a different trail. This one was narrower than the last, with thick roots snaking under the dirt from the oaks that towered above. When she stumbled, he caught her by the waist and she leaned back against his firm chest, her heart thumping wildly.
“T-thank you,” she managed.
“You’re welcome,” he murmured, his voice cradling her ear in a husky whisper.
“I… I have my footing now. You can release me.”
But he kept holding her in the sun kissed shade of a grand old tree, longer than he should have and not as long as she wanted him to. How odd it was, that when she’d woken up this morning in her familiar room, filled with her familiar things, that she’dhad no idea she was about to meet a veryunfamiliar man. A stranger, by every definition of the word. But if he was so strange and unfamiliar, why did she feel so comfortable with him? Why did their sentences click together with nary an awkward lull? Why did her pulse leap when he touched her, and why did she want to stay in his arms forever, even though he abhorred poetry, dancing, and horses?
He was helping her to find a husband!
Not offering himself up in the role.
A tiny fact she needed to remind herself of even as a part of her wanted to sink deeper into his embrace.
“We should keep going,” she said, reluctantly stepping out of his arms and turning to regard him with a smile that wobbled, just a little, at the edges. “My chaperone will be upon us at any moment, and she won’t be pleased with me for wandering off.”
Derrick raised a dark brow. “Not much of a chaperone if she’s let you escape into the company of a disreputable duke.”
“Are you?” she asked with some surprise. “Disreputable, that is.”
“I kissed you, didn’t I?”
“You also kept me from falling.”
“I’d like to roast Constantine for supper.”
“You fed him corn.”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to insult me?”
“Are you trying to insult yourself?” she countered. “I know we’ve only just met, but you seem like a very kind man to me.”
“Take that back. I’m debaucherous.”
“Delightful.”
“Devilish.”
“Debonair.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Would a delightful, debonair duke dothis?”
Their second kiss wasn’t at all like the first. That had been slow and soothing, a ripple moving through a pond on a hot summer’s day. This was an ocean wave crashing upon the shore. Turbulent, shocking, and utterly enthralling.
His fingers diving into her hair, Derrick dragged her under the frothy surf while his tongue plundered between her lips. Stunned by the sheer heat, she threw her arms around his neck, desperately seeking balance even as her entire world tipped precariously on its axis.
With a low growl, he ravished her as all reprehensible knights ravished the innocent maiden trapped in the tower; wildly, wantonly,wickedly. Establishing once and for all that he was no Prince Charming, but rather the fiendish villain that the good prince slayed before he claimed the maiden for himself.
When the kiss stopped as abruptly as it had begun, Annalise pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and stared at Derrick wide-eyed, her thoughts a wild jumble and her body a muddled pool of mysterious want. The feelings he invoked inside of her… feelings of lust, passion, and longing… she’d never felt yearnings like those before. She’d never even read about them. For no poetry, no play, no written word could ever capture what it was like to be desired by Derrick Blake, Duke of Tennyson.
“I take it back,” she murmured, slowly lowering her arm. “Youaredevilish.”
“Told you,” he said, but for some reason he didn’t appear pleased to have proven her wrong. “If your chaperone were here, she would tell you to stay far away from the likes of me.”
