The Rakehell of Roth (Everleigh Sisters #2) - Amalie Howard Page 0,27

a rabbit caught in an inescapable snare.

“You’ll never win, you know,” he taunted. “This game you’re playing.”

The never made Isobel’s spine snap straight. Being dismissed by him in such a flippant way made her see red.

Chin up, she told herself fiercely. You came to London with one goal. She didn’t come here to lose…or to go down without any semblance of a fight. She’d be damned if she’d turn tail and run just because her shameless flirt of a husband could seduce a doornail. He wasn’t immune from her touch, either, and that gave her power.

Unhurriedly, she let her hand slide down his arm, shaping the well-defined muscle, and felt his entire body stiffen. “It’s cute that you think this is a game, Winter.”

His eyes darkened at her use of his given name, and Isobel hid her smile. Careful not to call attention to her next move, she purposefully drifted off balance on the following turn, forcing them to almost collide with another couple, and let her knees buckle. The momentum shoved her side into his hard chest.

“Oh, I do beg your pardon,” she said over her shoulder to the other couple before peering up at him, eyes wide and guileless. “Sorry, my lord, there must have been more…slickness.”

Those full lips parted on a sharp inhale when he yanked her upright, a heated stare meeting hers as her hands gripped his waist…and a rigid length jutted into her belly. Isobel swallowed her gasp, her body going hot. Blast! If she wasn’t careful, she’d be a pile of cinders by the end of the wretched dance. But she would take him, too. He’d burn with her.

That was the thing with flames—they didn’t care who they consumed.

Pull yourself together and focus!

Remembering why she’d deliberately stumbled in the first place, Isobel drew her gloved knuckles down his hard waist, dangerously close to the straining bulge in his trousers, while pretending to find her footing. His choked exhalation made her bite back a gratified grin. She wouldn’t be one half of Lady Darcy if she didn’t know what the state of those trousers indicated.

Letting all the pent-up yearning she’d buried for three years show in her eyes, she took in a protracted breath that made her bodice rise and tighten. Winter’s gray eyes went almost black as they dropped to the creamy display of her rose-tinted décolletage. Thank God—and talented seamstresses—for creative padding. Her modest bosom had never looked better.

Winter swallowed, his throat working compulsively.

Isobel nearly burst into a wild giggle. So Clarissa’s long ago quip about heaving breasts and men’s inability to resist them was true! At the time, she’d told her friend that she was reading far too many penny romance novels, but it appeared that Clarissa’s pennies had been well spent if Roth’s smoldering gaze was any indication.

Isobel quickly searched out her friend. Unlike the moral-smiting excuse for a dance she was forced to endure, Clarissa and Oliver were locked in a stilted embrace, both their forms wooden, their faces carved from marble.

Poor Clarissa. Isobel would have to make it up to her somehow.

But she had bigger problems to worry about…as in the man currently at her mercy. Isobel’s gaze slanted back to Winter. His face remained tight with strain. Good. She shifted again, inviting another tormenting brush of her body against her husband’s muscular thighs.

Unfortunately, despite her purposeful machinations, his fingers felt as though they had branded through the layers of silk into her skin, and her bones were so molten that she could barely hold herself upright. Desire was a two-edged blade. Every movement of their bodies sent the flames between them burning higher. She couldn’t give up, but neither could she escape unscathed.

After an interminable time, the music finally stopped, but Winter did not release her.

“You are a tease, Lady Roth,” he murmured and the low hum of his voice went straight to her heated nether regions. The arrogant smirk that followed, however, made her temper rise.

“It takes one to know one, does it not?”

Isobel yanked her hand out of his and whirled away, leaving him there. His husky chuckle followed as she made her way to where the Duke of Kendrick was waiting. He arched an eyebrow that reminded her of his son’s. The resemblance made her scowl.

She lifted her chin. “I wish to leave.”

She also wished for a cold bath.

One preferably housed within a glacier.

In the depths of the Arctic.

Kendrick didn’t bat an eye. Just inclined his head, offering her his arm without comment. By the