The Duke’s Secret Wife Read Online Free Page B

caught it, scorching it to the point where a ragged hole had appeared in the fabric. Another couple of seconds and it would have been alight.
    ‘Oh—no…’
    All the strength seemed to leave her legs at the thought of what might have happened. Visions of the cloak catching fire, the flames taking hold, engulfed her thoughts. She could have been so badly burned.
    ‘Luis, thank you…’
    Or perhaps the way she was feeling had nothing to do with what might have happened, but rather just what was happening now.
    His arm was tight around her waist, supporting her with easy strength. She was so close that she could hear the thud of his heart beneath the soft material of his shirt, feel the way his chest rose and fell with every breath, inhale the intensely personal scent of his skin.
    And everything stilled, held immobile.
    ‘Luis…’
    She was back where she had been in the past. Back where she belonged. In his arms, held close. And it felt so right. So very, very right.
    A tiny adjustment of her position, a small twist of her body, brought them to face each other. Breast to chest, pelvis to pelvis, legs tight against the muscular length of his.
    ‘Luis…’
    He should never have taken off that damn cloak, Luis told himself furiously. Should never have exposed himself to temptation like this!
    Oh, it had been bad enough before. Simply seeing her face, the blonde sheen of her hair, the emerald brilliance of her eyes had been hard enough. The sound of her voice, soft and slightly husky in his ears, had awoken memories best left buried. It had set his pulses thudding, reminded him of hunger he preferred not to recall.
    But now…
    ‘What happened to us?’
    It was just the faintest thread of sound, so thin that without thinking he dropped his head instinctively to catch her hesitant words.
    And immediately regretted it.
    His cheek was now lying against the softness of her hair and the temptation to turn, just so, and press his lips to the silky strands was almost more than he could resist. The scent of her body rose towards his nostrils, flowers and rain; the sweet, subtle aroma of her skin, tormented him with the recollection of how it had once been so that his body stirred, hardened, demanded. His senses were swimming, swirling on a warm sea of desire, and deep inside the hunger of physical need clawed at him remorselessly.
    He couldn’t fight it any longer. Couldn’t hold back, couldn’t hide the way she affected him.
    Slowly his proud head lowered, and, sensing his intention,Isabelle lifted her own face to his, her mouth softening, lips parting instinctively in anticipation of his kiss.
    Behind them the kettle, knocked off the flames by being moved slightly to one side, came to the boil again with a wild shriek. Startled and confused, Isabelle took a step backwards, blinking in shock.
    ‘ Por Dios! ’ Luis muttered, darkly savage, though whether he was swearing at her, the kettle, or himself, Isabelle had no way of knowing.
    She didn’t have time to decide before he had wrenched himself away from her, releasing her arms with a speed that made it look as if he feared it might actually contaminate him to keep hold of her.
    ‘Luis…’ she tried, but the moment was gone, destroyed in a second, and there was no way she could get it back.
    But it had happened. And the fact that it had told her something very deep and very important about this husband of hers. Something she was sure that he would have preferred to keep totally secret. That he would have died rather than have her find out.
    ‘Where’s the coffee?’ Luis snapped, snatching the kettle up off the stove. ‘Mugs?’
    ‘Here…’
    Isabelle obeyed the note of command in his tone automatically, but her thoughts weren’t on the simple task at hand. Instead they were centred on those few moments in Luis’s arms and the seconds when she had known , when on the deepest, most intuitive level of understanding, she had sensed just what had been happening to