As Luck Would Have It by Alissa Johnson

this was fun.
    She shrugged again and bent down to smell one of the blooms. “Maybe I was, and maybe I wasn’t. What concern is it of yours?”
    She thought she heard him growl something that sounded like “good question,” but she was too intent on acting disinterested to insist he speak up.
    She did hear him swear though.
    “Who is he, Sophie?” he barked from behind her. “One of those ridiculous fops, or that libertine Lord— Stop shrugging your shoulders at me!”
    He was upon her in two quick strides. She hadn’t even time to fully straighten before he grabbed her by the shoulders, spun her around, and pulled her roughly against him.
    “Who?” he demanded.
    “Um…” Although the game was still interesting, she wasn’t certain it still qualified as fun.
    “You are not, I repeat, not to meet men, any man, in any garden alone,” he ordered with a high-handedness that almost equaled his temper. “Do I—”
    “Except you, of course,” she pointed out. Any sensible girl would have known that now was a good time to keep her mouth firmly shut and simply nod in agreement. Sophie had always thought herself a reasonably sensible girl, but at the moment she was willing to reconsider. Alex’s fingers tightened on her upper arms. His head bent until their faces wereinches apart and she could see the outline of her reflection in his green eyes.
    “Do I make myself clear?” he ground out.
    She swallowed, or tried to, as her mouth had suddenly gone rather dry. “Yes,” she rasped.
    “Good. I forbid it.”
    Well now, that just begged for a response.
    “Well now, that —”
    Alex bent his head and kissed her. Whether it was to silence her, or simply because he wanted to, she didn’t know. Nor did she care, because this was her first real kiss.
    And it was amazing. It wasn’t the gentle pressing of lips she had always imagined kissing to be, and to be honest, she had done a good deal of imagining. No, this kiss was forceful, wild, incredible. His arms wrapped around her and pulled her against him, molding her form against his length. Sophie lost all sense of reason, all sense of time and place, lost everything but the ability to feel.
    Her hands found his chest, his neck, his face. Her fingers speared into his hair, brushing through that endearing lock in front that she’d wanted to touch for days now, and tangling in the back as she struggled to bring him closer. She could never be close enough for this, close enough to him. He groaned and nipped her bottom lip. Something hot settled in her chest and spread down to her toes.
    Alex abandoned her mouth to trail his lips down the side of her throat. She tasted like every sweet thing he had ever craved. His hand stole up and lightly brushed against her breast, teasing the both of them. She gasped and the soft sound sent a fierce wave of desire through him. “My God, Sophie.”
    Sophie…Sophie Everton.
    The name sent off bells in his head. They weren’t loud enough to stop him from kissing her again, but they were persistent. Little chimes that snuck past the lust.
    Miss Sophie Everton, the woman he had been sent to watch. The woman whose cousin was a suspected traitor. Thewoman who had him , the Duke of Rockeforte, scouring ballrooms, jumping off balconies, and acting like an overbearing, possessive…orangutan.
    Alex broke away and used his last remnants of willpower to grab Sophie’s shoulders and set her at arm’s length.
    Sophie stumbled a bit before regaining her balance. If the kiss had been unexpected, its conclusion was a complete shock. She wasn’t an expert on these matters, far from it, but…shouldn’t they have wound down a bit first? It all seemed rather abrupt. Her heart and mind were still whirling away, still lost in the kiss. And she realized—she wasn’t quite ready for it to end.
    Alex, on the other hand, looked done in. He was bent over at the waist with his hands braced against his knees. She couldn’t see his face, but his