The Devil in Her Bed (Devil You Know #3) - Kerrigan Byrne Page 0,37

if she was preparing to resist. “Who are you to presume to tell me what to do?”

He dropped his forehead to hers, a gesture incredibly intimate for a stranger. If they were, indeed, strangers.

And yet, despite her claim and the truth of it, he didn’t want this woman to fall victim to Kenway as so many others had.

“Francesca…”

“No.” She wrenched away again. “You answer my questions, Lord Drake. What aren’t you telling me? Why do you care?”

“Because I want…” He dropped his hands, unsure of how much more truth he could give her.

“You want to fuck me, yes, you’ve made that abundantly clear.”

“I want to protect ye,” he thundered after taking the space of a blink to recover from the crass and intriguing word tumbling from her mouth. “I think ye’re flirting with a danger ye don’t understand.”

“Then tell me, in no uncertain terms, so that I understand.” She made a gesture for him to go on before crossing her arms over her chest. “Tell me what you know.”

“All I can tell ye is that I know enough to warn you away from what you’re trying to do.” He’d never been so frustrated by his charge, so uncomfortable with the lies his vocation required from him.

“I’m trying to celebrate my friend’s forthcoming baby announcement. I’m trying to make the most of being a wealthy, unattached countess in a world that would confine me in every fathomable sort of prison.” She stepped toward him, her gaze turning soft and liquid. “And if you’d stop telling me what to do for two goddamned seconds, I’d try to seduce a rather suspicious Scot.”

He froze. “Ye’d … What?”

“You are dangerous, so you claim. So powerful?” She raked him with a sneering glare. “Prove it, Lord Drake. Show me just exactly what you can do.”

CHAPTER TEN

Francesca read nothing but secrets in Drake’s stormy eyes. Secrets her instincts screamed at her to uncover.

Luckily for her, uncovering secrets from men who claimed to be powerful was a formula she’d perfected over the past few years.

This man, however, was different. His power was more than a claim, but self-evident in every aspect of his being.

He restrained that strength as his fingers bit into her shoulders. “Ye need to be very certain of what ye’re offering, my lady. If ye take me to yer bed, it willna change anything.”

She stalled. It’d been the first time one of her seductions had been met with a warning. A cryptic one at that. Why were men so often wrong? Of course it would change everything, at least for her.

“Well,” she answered with a coy and practiced quirk of her lips. “I was rather hoping you’d take me to your bed.”

“Bloody Christ,” he cursed, before all but dragging her toward the back stairs that would lead to where the carriages waited to take their masters and mistresses home at the end of the evening.

Francesca floated on her slippers, feeling like she imagined Icarus might have. Daring to fly too close to the sun, hoping not to fall out of the sky before her purpose had been attained.

And her immediate purpose had become finding out just who this Lord Drake was. This man with “dubious contacts” and “limitless legal protections whose currency was not just money but secrets and blood.” This man who knew Luther Kenway intimately enough to warn her away from him, despite the earl’s more sterling reputation.

He’d warned her as if he cared, which was very probably a lie.

And yet … a sincerity had emanated from him, not just during their conversation but during their kiss, as well.

A man’s mouth often lied, but his body rarely did.

He kissed her like he couldn’t help himself, and Francesca intended to use that against him.

Even as her own body threatened to betray her.

A flurry of butterflies erupted in her stomach as they crunched over the drive with ever-quickening steps. Francesca was able to pause long enough to bid her driver to send her excuses to Alexander and Cecil, and to tell them with whom she was leaving.

She made certain Lord Drake marked the precaution she took.

If something were to happen to her, the remaining Red Rogues would do anything to avenge her.

Not that she couldn’t take care of herself.

She’d a dram in her pocket and weapons on her person, prepared for just such an occasion.

Drake less lifted and more crowded her into his well-appointed carriage. With a motion equally graceful and fluid, he settled himself into the plush champagne velvet seat and pulled her