Tempting a Devil by Samantha Kane Page A

It simply wasn’t the sort of thing a respectable Devil wore. Buff breeches and a borrowed blue superfine coat worked quite well for him, if Harry’s admiration was anything to go by.
    Harry, on the other hand, looked so gorgeous in her wicked red riding habit that Roger was tempted to see if it was indeed possible to have relations with a woman while on a horse. He’d never wanted to try before. Horses were far too skittish, and stallions in particular were rather sensitive to that sort of thing.
    “We are here to show everyone that you are my lover,” she explained patiently. She was always so bloody patient. Roger knew damned well he’d asked that question at least five times in as many minutes. He wondered just what it would take to try her patience.
    “Then shouldn’t I be ravishing you?” he asked peevishly. “Right now it is only apparent that I am your reluctant riding companion.”
    “Don’t you want people to know we’re lovers?” she asked him quietly.
    He cursed inwardly at the hurt he heard in her voice, but refused to give in to it. “Of course I do. But,” he rushed to say when she started to reply, “I’d rather they be left to speculate about it, which will save your reputation, rather than know for a fact by our behavior that we are.”
    “While I’d prefer ravishment, I hardly think that putting a smile on your face and gazing at me adoringly will incite lewd talk among society,” she commented drily.
    “You don’t know society,” he countered. Then he sighed. “Fine. Look, I’m smiling.” He gave her his most winning smile, the one that highlighted his cursed dimples. “And how’s this for adoring?” He let his smile falter just slightly as he gazed at her like an actor on stage mimicking true love.
    “You look as if you have a stomach ailment,” she told him crisply. “I’d rather you go back to sulking so that everyone doesn’t think I’ve actually made you ill.”
    Roger burst out laughing. “Oh, Harry. You haven’t changed a bit.”
    She gave him a surprised look. “Of course I have, and so have you. But it does seem as if when we are together we return to the banter of our youth.” She laughed. “Not that we bantered about being lovers, but I’m sure you understand what I mean.”
    Roger nudged his horse a little closer to hers. “When we were younger, I never imagined that I would ever think of you the way I do now.”
    She peeked at him from under the brim of her fashionable hat. It was black and quite similar to his beaver hat, except for the netting that draped it and dipped down over her forehead. Something about the way she looked at him made her appear seductive and mysterious. Her golden brown eyes gleamed from under thick, brown lashes. “And how is that?” she asked.
    The question was innocent enough, but the answers were decidedly not. She wanted love talk, then he’d give it to her. His way. “That night in the garden, before I knew it was you, I wanted you desperately. I was ready to take you right there. To push you up against that tree, lift your skirt, and give you what you were asking for. I ached to do it.”
    She gasped and her eyes went wide.
    “I’m still aching,” he confessed roughly. “I think about it, about you, about us. Would you let me, Harry? Push you up against a tree, a wall, a table? You ask for ravishment, well, I can do that.”
    Their horses had slowed considerably as they both stopped paying attention to the park around them. “Can you?” she asked breathlessly. “What then? After you had me against the tree or the wall? What does that mean, ravishment?”
    “It means I’d kiss you the way I did in the parlor yesterday when I could resist you no longer. I’d crush you to me and devour you. Kiss you until you couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t say no.”
    “I’d never,” she told him fervently.
    “God, Harry, I want to do that,” he said just as fervently. But I won’t , he reminded himself.