Page 67 of How to Seduce a Duke this Autumn
Oh, but she was thinking about him. Always. However, she wasn’t about to tell him that, lest she wanted his grin to turn all sorts of wicked.
Resistance would be futile, then.
And she wasn’t done resisting yet.
*
Control.
It had always been one of those things he had been good at. He had to be as the heir to the dukedom. He certainly couldn’t allow it to slip when his brother almost, so very almost got engaged to the woman he had always been drawn to. But he had never grasped the depth of that pull until she’d been lost to him.
But that was before David had wrecked everything.
Something Adam both despised and rejoiced in at the same time. Despised, because he never wanted Charlene to hurt, ever. Rejoiced, because he had been given a chance. One he didn’t even think—dare think about—until the moment he had spotted her in that ballroom at the first event he attended upon his return. Attended because he’d spotted her name. Attended because the moment he did, his control had already started slipping.
It had slipped with every encounter.
Every glare.
Every touch.
And now that she had kissed him? But not just any kiss, such a pure, simple kiss that if he’d not been sitting, he’d have been brought to his knees. Saints, threadbare couldn’t describe the amount he had left. The only thing keeping him from pouncing on her and claiming her here and now was her ever-present hesitancy. It lingered. Always a reminder.
Patience, however, had always been a strength. On the other hand, patience and control were stout companions, and if the one disintegrated, he didn’t know where that would leave the other.
And the way she was looking at him…
“We should head inside,” he found himself saying before he defeated the moment with any of his urges.
“We probably should. Miss Martin should be green with envy by now.”
Adam groaned. “Must you bring her up in this moment?” While he was rock hard and wanting. He certainly wilted at the mention of Miss Martin.
She shrugged and grinned.
Wench.
A spill of laughter reached them, and Adam’s head whipped to the house, followed by a curse. In one smooth movement, he gathered Charlene into his arms and leaped to his feet, retreating deeper into the shadows of the garden.
“We’ve been here too long.”
“Seems so,” she murmured back.
He glanced down at her, slowly setting her to her feet. “Not afraid?”
She snorted. “I don’t know why you would say that since this is not the first time we’ve been alone like this.”
Yes, but it’s the first time it felt different.
More raw.
More… bloody everything.
Before he could speak, she leaned in to get a better view of the crowd of six people, if he weren’t mistaken.
“It looks like Miss Martin is part of the group.”
“Of course she is,” he muttered. In a few short hours, that woman had become the bane of his damn existence.
