Twice a Rake by Catherine Gayle

across her bare thighs. She’d never experienced anything so scandalous before—and that was saying something, considering recent events.
    Even with the chill of the library air breezing across her naked flesh, she felt like she could catch fire at any moment. Everywhere his fingers or lips trailed, a blaze burned in their wake.
    Lord Quinton suddenly sat up and pushed her back. Somehow she ended up with her gown and shift cinched around her waist and her bare legs straddling his hips as he loomed above her. “Marry me, Miss Hyatt. You must.” He hooked an arm beneath her knee and pulled her leg up high in the air, licking the sensitive flesh at the back of her knee and sending shivers from her fingers to her toes.
    Oh, dear good Lord. She had to answer him, somehow. Regardless of what answer she gave, she had to say something . “Oh,” was all that came out, however, on a rather long and ragged sigh.
    Lord Quinton let her leg go and leaned further over her. He slid a finger beneath her bodice, sliding it along the edge of her breast. “So lovely,” he said, just before following the same path with his tongue.
    Aurora nearly came off the sofa from the shock of sensations flooding through her.
    “Marry me,” he commanded, blowing on the moistened and overheated skin his tongue had just left. Before she could answer, he pulled on her gown and chemise until one breast popped free. He took it into his mouth and rolled his tongue over her sensitive, tight nipple. Something hard pulsed against her womanhood, which was throbbing with its own unknown need. She instinctively moved her hips to rub against him and nearly cried out in shock from the pleasure it gave her.
    And then, just as suddenly as it had all started, Lord Quinton lifted himself away from her and resituated her on the sofa. What had she done wrong? “Cover yourself,” he said, his words terse and gruff. He left her and stood beside the hearth, staring into the dying embers.
    After she straightened her gown about her legs and pulled her bodice up to cover her bared breast, she felt colder, somehow more naked than before.
    He did not turn to face her. With one Hessian, he kicked against the grate. “You will marry me. Tomorrow.” If she didn’t know better, she’d think there was fear in his voice.
    But Lord Quinton could not possibly be afraid. That would mean he cared.
    Ludicrous. Laughable, even.
    He couldn’t have done what he’d just done with her, and then tossed her aside on the sofa as he did if he cared. She was just another of his conquests.
    Yet she was afraid. There was only one answer she could give him.
    “Yes,” she whispered to the stoic expanse of his back.
     
    ~ * ~
     
    Griffin looked up at the massive manor house before him, then double-checked the direction. Number Twelve, Berkeley Square. That’s what his father had told him. And with those huge colonnades and beveled windows, it had to be Mansfield House.
    Thankfully, his father had not been interested in why he needed to visit with Lord Rotheby. Griffin saw no reason to bring more people into the matter than necessary, even though Quinton’s actions were likely to have an effect on Phoebe.
    He knew his sister well. She had tried to convince everyone at the ball that she merely felt a touch under the weather, using that as an excuse for her early departure. But Griffin saw the pain in her eyes that she had attempted to mask as illness.
    Obviously, Lord Quinton had been at the same ball as his sister.
    Which meant that Aurora Hyatt was likely also at that ball.
    He could be too late. Quinton might have already set his devious plan into motion. Another young lady might already be ruined.
    Griffin should have immediately come to Rotheby after Miss Hyatt had refused to see him. If he could not stop her from her own folly, perhaps he could have stopped events on Quinton’s end.
    But he had not.
    He could never forgive himself if he’d allowed another innocent to fall prey to