Bewitched by His Kiss (May Day Mischief) by Barbara Monajem Page A

He didn’t want to harm him, much less kill him, and besides, Alexis deserved better. Or rather, different. Lucasta was a single-minded, unyielding shrew. She would destroy Alexis, a decent fellow if ever there was one.
    David, on the other hand, was notoriously indecent. Not only that, he wanted Lucasta. No, more than that—Lucasta belonged to him, whether she liked it or not. She was his .
    “Go on, sweetheart,” he drawled. “The pathway’s not between those two trees this morning, but to the left of them. Get your clothes off, and I’ll be right there to claim you.”
    He didn’t need more light to see her glare. She didn’t deign to answer his quip, but as long as the memory of May Day morning three years ago was besieging her, so far, so good.
    The few conversations he’d had with Lucasta during the intervening years had served no purpose whatsoever, either as inducements or threats. Therefore, he’d asked Alexis to arrange a visit to Whistleby Priory, although they were not supposed to arrive until that afternoon. Ostensibly, David wished to learn firsthand about folklore connected with the estate. That would no doubt prove interesting, but his true purpose for this visit was to make sure once and for all that the proposed marriage never took place.
    “How foolish of me to assume you would arrive at the front door like a civilized Englishman,” Lucasta said. “Where, pray tell, is Alexis?”
    David waved a hand vaguely in the direction from which he’d come. “Somewhere over there, humoring me by pretending to look for a way into the wood. Such an obliging fellow, you know. He’ll make the perfect henpecked husband.”
    “Alexis won’t need henpecking,” she retorted “because he’s a reasonable human being, not a lecherous lunatic.”
    “How encouraging to know that you still think of me, darling,” David said, vaulting off the horse and advancing toward her. “Not that you can help yourself, since the bond between us is eternal and unbreakable.”
    “Rubbish,” she said. “Rubbish that I think about you, and rubbish that anything exists between you and me but a tawdry, faded memory.”
    One of the wonderful things about Lucasta Barnes was that she refused to back down. If she would turn and run like any sensible woman, or at least back fearfully away, she might be able to avoid him. Instead, she made getting close to her all too easy.
    “Tawdry?” David said, bearing down on her. “Yes, delightfully so. Your luscious, milky-white thighs parting. Your glistening folds opening to me.”
    Her eyes widened and her lips parted as she drew in a breath. “You are disgusting .” Her voice trembled ever so little.
    That was all the encouragement he needed. He backed her up against one of those massive oaks she’d been peering between, trying to find a path she wasn’t meant to follow. Tardily, she tried to sidestep him, but he hemmed her in with his arms and pressed her bodily against the tree.
    “Faded, is it? I can mend that,” he said, and kissed her.
    * * *
    She barely had time to get her hands on his chest before he crushed her between his large, powerful body and the tree. She spread her hands and pushed hard, but he didn’t budge, and meanwhile his mouth claimed hers with a familiar ferocity that she’d dreamed about and tried to forget for three long years.
    As for his words, oh,God, the mention of her parted thighs had sent fire straight to her privates, and she was wet and ready and no doubt glistening, damn him, just as he’d described.
    She melted under his kiss with a groan of pleasure and pure rage. Why couldn’t she resist him? It couldn’t be because he was a rake. She’d never before met a rake who appealed to her in the least.
    She’d spent almost three years thrusting the Earl of Elderwood out of her mind. She’d arranged a false engagement with Sir Alexis Court to stave him off. Now she sank into the taste of him, dizzied by his heady male aroma, overwhelmed by