The Scoundrel and the Debutante (The Cabot Sisters #3)

He looked at Prudence with her hazel eyes and golden hair and plush lips and said, “I think you should live as you want.” It wasn’t a lie—it was everything that made him who he was.

Prudence’s response shocked him. Completely and utterly shocked him. Because the moment he uttered those words, Prudence half lunged, half fell across him, landing awkwardly against his chest, her lips finding his. Pain shot through him and he sucked in his breath, but Prudence was not deterred. She kissed him as ardently as he’d kissed her under the sycamore tree.

He hadn’t meant she was to seek this. He put his hands on her arms and pushed her back, grimacing.

“Oh!” she exclaimed at the sight of him, and stroked his face, her fingers trailing hot across his skin, touching his bruised lip and swollen eye. “Did I hurt you? I meant to... I thought I’d—”

“I know what you thought,” he said, and put his hand on her hip, pushing her to her side. “You thought to take advantage of a poor, disabled man.” He moved her onto her back, rolling with her so that he was on his side. “Never underestimate a man’s strength, no matter if he’s been injured,” he said. “And never doubt that every man is a scoundrel, no matter how he appears. Every last one of us is bursting with desire for women like you. Look at me now, Pru, look carefully, because this is how pure desire appears. I should leave you be. I shouldn’t touch you, but I am bursting with desire.”

He moved over her, kissing her, and when he did, Prudence made a kittenish sound that sluiced through him. Roan’s pain began to slough away—he felt nothing but raw want rising up in him. His blood began to percolate, even as he scolded himself for it. He was the man he despised. He’d made promises, given his word...but he was weak. He was as weak as a toddler with a jar of candy when a woman as beautiful as Prudence lay beneath him. The devil in him urged him on, encouraged by her lusty response.

Prudence’s arms went around his neck as she kissed him, her tongue twirling around his, her lips so soft beneath his. This was what he’d warned her of. “You want adventure, Prudence Cabot?” he rasped as he moved his mouth across her cheek to her ear, grunting a bit at the pain that sudden direction had caused him.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, Roan, I do.”

She could not have said anything more arousing to him; Roan growled as he nuzzled her neck. Prudence made a noise in her throat that sounded a bit like the cooing of a dove, and it only made his blood run hotter. He slowly, painfully, moved his hands down her body, finding her breasts and ribs, her waist.

Prudence grabbed his head between her hands and kissed him, nibbling at his lip. “Ow,” he muttered, and she quickly moved her feathery little kisses to his cheeks, his swollen eye. Roan dipped his hand into the bodice of her gown, his fingers closing around the warm flesh of her breast. He didn’t want to stop, never wanted to stop caressing her buttery skin.

He trailed kisses down her neck to her chest, pressed his mouth against the swell of her breast and thought he’d never tasted flesh so sweet. She was divine, as soft and pleasurable as any woman. The night was swirling around them, darkness and milky light spilling across her skin, casting shadows that moved and captured him. He slowly inched down, following the trail of moonlight on her, until he found the hem of her gown. He pushed it up, his hand finding warm, soft flesh beneath.

Above him, Prudence was breathing hard, her chest rising and falling with each full breath. Her hair was a wild tangle of leaves and curls. She was quite a mess, and yet he’d never been so aroused by the sight of a woman as he was by her on the ground under the tree.

He kissed the soft inside of her knee. He forgot his aches and pains, his mind having skipped ahead to thoughts of moving inside her.

Prudence sighed, long and soft and full of pleasure. The sound of her pleasure sent him barreling down some invisible slide, tumbling into a night that shattered around him. His hands moved on her body, one on her breast, which he’d somehow managed to free from her gown. Another hand skimmed her bare leg, sliding up, slipping in between them and into the slick folds of her sex. He heard his groan, heard the ache of want in it. He nipped at the flesh of her thigh now, while his hand caressed her. Her scent wrapped around his head, made his mouth water, made his body pulse with hunger for her flesh. He couldn’t bear it; he managed to rise up, somehow balancing on his arms above her, nudging in between her legs. She looked up at him with a lusty smile.

“I warned you of scoundrels, didn’t I?” he said gruffly.