Rake's Honour (19 page)

Authors: Beverley Oakley

“I think it was more than adequate.”

His touch was gentle on her face. “I want to see you again.”

Her eyes caressed his broad-shouldered, powerful yet elegant form. Longing tingled through her, so ardent that fear followed close on its heels. Her heart began to pound. She should never have started this.

“You want to
see
me?” She laughed with affected lightness. “In the parlour, with my sister in attendance? Shall we have tea and biscuits, or do you prefer wine and cakes?”

His eyes darkened and the tanned skin tightened over his cheekbones. “You want bluntness? All right. I want to fuck you again.”

“It is very hard for me to get away.”

“You must.” He moved closer, a lock of coal-black hair falling over his brow as he took her hand and pulled it to his lap. His erection felt huge and throbbing beneath the nankeen cloth. Again. Already. She closed her eyes and gripped him as tightly as the fabric would allow, her cunt clenching at the recollection of the mind-drugging effect of his lovemaking. A woman could become a slave to this sort of passion.

“I shall be staying at City Tavern. All month.”

His eyes sparkled, making her stomach bottom out.

He described small circles on her palm. “You must come and see me, and soon, too. You must promise—cross your heart.” He traced an
X
across her left breast.

She arched up and put her lips upon his. As she kissed him in a long, leisurely fashion, her hand slid up to his chest to feel his heart racing beneath. And why shouldn’t it? She was very good at goodbyes.

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About the Author

Beverley Oakley’s life is a romantic story as well as a professional one. She is a passionate romance novelist—the author of four books—and she has worked as a journalist, editor and proofreader on newspapers and magazines throughout Australia.

After leaving her job as a features writer on a major metropolitan newspaper, she became a safari lodge manager in the Okavango Delta, Botswana, where she met her handsome Norwegian husband, a pilot. She joined him in the skies for the next few years, operating the computer equipment in the back of low-flying aircraft during contracts as an airborne geophysical survey operator in Namibia, Greenland and French Guyana.

In 2000 she returned to Australia and a job as editor of Australia’s top-selling craft magazine before penning her first Regency Historical Intrigue for Robert Hale.