From SECOND DUKE’S THE CHARM by Kate Bateman. Copyright © 2023 by the author and reprinted by permission of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
Chapter 4
Was she really doing this?
Tess shook her head in disbelief as she followed the handsome stranger through the crowded rooms. The force of her attraction was both wonderful and terrifying.
His opponent had called him Thorn, but was that his surname, or a nickname? Either way, it seemed oddly appropriate. There was a sharpness about him; a dangerous kind of beauty, like the perfectly-honed edge of a blade.
Perhaps it was better not knowing his name.
He still held her hand. He glanced over his shoulder with a smile that made her belly flutter.
The crowds thinned out as they ventured deeper into the house. Couples pressed together in darkened alcoves. Tess glanced around for Ellie and Daisy, but there was no sign of either of them.
The first room they entered was occupied. Tess heard a male bellow of outrage as the door slammed shut again, and she sent a silent apology to whomever they’d inadvertently interrupted.
The second room was empty, lit with a solitary lamp. She glimpsed tall rows of books that lined the walls before she was whirled around and pressed flat against the door. The stranger’s chest met hers, his body caging her, and she felt a flutter of delicious panic.
This was madness.
Imperative madness.
She could barely see him in the gloom, just his outline, but she felt him lean closer. His breath teased her jaw.
“So, what does this adventure of yours look like?”
Her fears slid away. She wanted this. Needed this. She just had to be brave.
“It starts with a kiss.”
He studied her mouth with an intensity that should have been unnerving, but instead made her body tingle in anticipation.
“A kiss? I can manage that.”
He bent his head and Tess closed her eyes, determined to savor every movement. She’d never been kissed on the mouth before.
His lips grazed hers, warm, softer than she’d expected. She’d thought he’d devour her, abandon all restraint, but there was no urgency in his kiss, no aggression. Instead, he kissed her with a delicious, unhurried languor, as if she were something to be savored. As if they had all the time in the world.
Heat spread up her throat and into her cheeks.
His hands came up to cradle her face and she stiffened, thinking he meant to remove her mask, but he only brushed his thumbs across the edges of her mouth in a way that made her shiver out a breath.
He kissed her again.
“Delicious,” he murmured. “Your mouth is delicious.”
He angled his head, and she felt his tongue glide along the closed seam of her lips. Tess experienced a moment of confusion, but when she opened her mouth to ask him what he was doing, his tongue slid inside to mingle with her own.
She almost swooned at the delightful new sensation. Cautiously, she swirled her own tongue against his, kissing him back with artless enthusiasm, and when he gave a low groan of encouragement her body tingled in wicked response.
He tasted of the brandy he’d been drinking, smoky and dark, and heat pooled low in her belly. His big hands slid into her hair, cupping her skull as he deepened the kiss, pulling her into the darkness like an undertow current that was impossible to resist.
One kiss became many, an endless game of advance and retreat; drugging, addictive, deliciously overwhelming. Tess sagged against the door, weak at the knees.
Oh, this was glorious!
Emboldened, she slid her hands around his neck and threaded her fingers into his hair, wishing she’d removed her gloves to feel the texture of his skin. His chest pinioned her against the door as his mouth stole the breath from her lungs.
This man certainly knew what he was doing.
Little by little his kisses became more urgent, fusing them together, drawing her into a dizzying swirl of black and red. He pressed against her, heavy and hard, so overwhelmingly male that it thrilled her to her bones.
Tearing his lips from hers, he placed a scorching row of kisses down the side of her neck and across her collarbone, and Tess tilted her head back against the door to give him better access. The light, scratchy stubble on his cheeks raised goosebumps on her skin.
His low groan mirrored her own longing perfectly.
“God, Scarlet, tell me you want more than kissing.”
The roughness in his voice, his fervency, was her undoing. Tess struggled to catch her breath, to muster any semblance of sanity, but her body was clamoring for his touch, for more of the delicious heat he was kindling so effortlessly.
How was it possible for two strangers to be so attuned? For her body to react in such a way? It had never happened before, and it made absolutely no sense, but she didn’t care. If this was madness, then she was happily destined for Bedlam.
“More,” she whispered. “Please.”
He didn’t wait for further encouragement. His mouth slid to the top of her breast, shamefully exposed by the outrageous dress, and she gasped as he gave her skin a playful bite, then soothed it with his tongue.
And then his hand slid inside the low bodice and her mouth dropped open as he cupped her breast.
Dear Lord, what a sensation! His fingers gently squeezed her while his hot mouth feathered kisses lower and lower. And then her nipple was in his mouth, and the swirling of his tongue and the faint suction of his lips made her belly quiver.
Oh, this was wicked!
“Touch me.” His rough demand pulled her from her dazed languor. “Put your hands on me. Please.”
Tess blinked. Touch him where? His face? His chest?
He caught her hand and drew it down between them, pressing her fingers to the front of his breeches, and she let out a shocked breath as she felt the rock-solid length of him beneath the cloth.
Touch him there? Oh, God, she hadn’t the faintest idea what to do.
But she wanted to.
Thankfully, he didn’t seem to notice her hesitation. As she tugged off her gloves, he unbuttoned his falls with unhurried dexterity. And then she felt him; hot, velvety flesh against her palm. Her fingers closed around him automatically, and he uttered a growl of pleasure against her neck.
“Yes, Scarlet. Exactly like that.”
From Second Duke’s the Charm by Kate Bateman. Copyright © 2023 by the author and reprinted by permission of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
SECOND DUKE’S THE CHARM by Kate Bateman
Meet Her Majesty’s Rebels: three brilliant women who run King & Co., London’s most exclusive investigative agency…
The wedding-night death of her much older husband left Tess Townsend the Dowager Duchess of Wansford—and still a virgin. Now she and her two best friends investigate London’s most scandalous crimes, and while Tess longs to experience physical pleasure for herself, she can’t risk losing her treasured independence…
Cynical shipping magnate Justin Thornton never expected to inherit a dukedom, but he’ll do his duty. When the ravishing woman he kissed at a party turns out to be the Dowager Duchess, Justin sees an obvious solution: a marriage of convenience that will suit them both.
But the passion that sparks between them is anything but convenient. As Tess works on a new case at the request of Queen Charlotte, her increasingly suspicious behavior makes Justin question her motives—and her past. The infuriating woman clearly can’t be trusted, but Justin doesn’t believe in love, so there’s absolutely no danger of him falling for his own wife…is there?
Romance Historical [St. Martin’s Paperbacks, On Sale: December 26, 2023, Mass Market Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781250907363 / eISBN: 9781250290199]
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About Kate Bateman
Kate Bateman, (also writing as K. C. Bateman), is the #1 bestselling author of Regency, Victorian, and Renaissance historical romance. Her Renaissance romp, The Devil To Pay, is a Romance Writer’s of America 2019 RITA® Finalist, and her Regency-set A Counterfeit Heart (Secrets & Spies series) won the 2018 Book Buyer’s Best contest for Best Historical Romance.
Kate wrote her first historical romance in response to a $1 bet with her husband who rashly claimed she’d ‘never finish the thing.’ She gleefully proved him wrong. Her books feature her favorite intelligent heroines, (badasses in bodices!) wickedly inappropriate banter, and heroes you want to both strangle and kiss.
When not traveling to exotic locations ‘for research’, Kate leads a not-so-secret double life as a fine art appraiser and on-screen antiques expert for several TV shows in the UK, each of which has up to 2.5 million viewers. Before writing romance, Kate was director and valuer at her own UK Auction House, Batemans in Stamford, Lincolnshire. She currently splits her time between Illinois and her native England and writes despite three inexhaustible children and that husband. . . who still owes her that dollar.
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