Page 5 of All Duke and Bothered

She couldn’t believe her ears. Where did he even get all those notions about her? Yes, Papa’s financials hadn’t been good in the last few years. Yes, she had male friends. Yes, she did her best to be pleasant and polite, but weren’t smiling and offering a kind word part of that? None of that meant she was a fortune hunter.

The door behind her opened, and a tall, dark shadow walked in.

It was him. The duke. She jumped to her feet, breathing hard. She needed to flee. Not only was she being compromised by being alone with him, but she couldn’t let him see her in such distress. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

She marched towards him to exit the room through the open door. “Excuse me,” she said without looking at him as she tried to pass him.

But he stepped in front of the door and blocked her way.

The feeling of being trapped coiled around her like a snake. She looked up into his face. His dark eyes were on her lips. They were so close, her breasts were touching his waistcoat. She could smell the clean scent of herbal soap, and his cologne—a sharp scent of bay leaves, pepper, and something citrusy.

Her body swayed towards him. Her bones melted under his dark and seeking gaze. She should demand for him to let her pass—why didn’t she?

A fiery longing passed through her veins. He was dark and dangerous and made the hair on her skin stand up.

“You’re not behaving like a gentleman,” she said.

A wicked smile stretched his lips. “That is because, dear Miss Beckett, I’m not going to be one.”

One arm wrapped around her waist, and he whirled her around and backed her against the wall. It was hard and cold against her back even through the dress.

His eyes glimmered with mischief, and then he lowered his head and kissed her.

His lips should have been hard and cold, like him. Instead, they were plush, and soft, and hot.

For a moment, she couldn’t move, frozen in place, unable to comprehend what was happening. The man who had spoken so badly of her, like no one had before in her life, was kissing her!

Then something grew in her. A desire for more of that delicious scent, that taste, and that soft, warm touch.

She parted her lips, craving more, and his tongue dipped into her mouth, gently swiping at her own, bringing fire and need rising from somewhere deep in her stomach. She should push him away and run.

She must stop him! If someone saw them, she’d be ruined.

Instead, she melted against him. The slides of his tongue sent jolts of white-hot longing through her. She wanted more. She pressed herself against him, and his embrace was an iron-hard rod.

Just as a strange, needy sound escaped her throat, his weight against her was gone, and she was cold.

He stood two steps away from her, looking at her from under his gorgeous, dark eyebrows, his chest heaving just like hers. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand like he had just had a good, long drink.

“Whyever did you do that?” she asked, dazed.

“I wanted to prove you’re nothing but a flirt. And you’re clearly not as innocent as you claim to be. Like I said, I am never mistaken, Miss Beckett.”

She hugged herself tightly, her cheeks flushing as embarrassment washed over her.

His beautiful mouth stretched in a wicked grin. “You said you didn’t want to be in my company ever again, Miss Beckett? I am sorry to disappoint you. This is just the beginning.”

And with that, he strode from the room.

3

Later the same night, at four o’clock in the morning, Preston drank brandy in the main salon of the gentlemen’s club Tyche. But even though he kept his eyes on the golden liquid rolling in his glass, his thoughts were back at Almack’s, back in the dark room where he’d kissed Penelope Beckett and could barely make himself stop.

How good she had felt in his arms. Her dark blond hair silky under his fingers, and her blue-gray eyes growing darker with fury and then passion when he’d had her so deliciously cornered, pressed against him. Her mouth, so soft and plush and divine, the innocence she’d tried to fake with unsure movements of her lips and tongue. And good Lord, that divine taste of her, and the scent of vanilla and apple in his nostrils that had made his head spin as though he’d gone up in a hot-air balloon.

Impossible. He couldn’t feel anything like that for her, not with what he had in mind.

Tonight, the room was full. The ball at Almack’s wouldn’t officially end for another hour, but no doubt, it lacked gentlemen, as around a hundred of them were here.