Free The Defiant One by Danelle Harmon

splintering as she cried out and hung poised above him, her head thrown back, one breast jutting free, tears of unexpected ecstacy rolling down her cheeks as climax seized her as well.
    Then she fell, panting and exhausted, across his bare chest just as the door crashed fully open.
    Shocked silence.
    Shocked, stunned, awful silence.
    And then a calm and perfectly unfazed voice penetrating it:
    "Dear me.  This is certainly a most interesting experiment you are conducting, Andrew."
    Still weak and dazed, Andrew raised his head.  There was the duke of Blackheath.  There was a handful of staring servants.
    And there, God help them both, was Celsie's brother, the earl of Somerfield.
    "Bloody hell ," Andrew said, and throwing a hand over his eyes, let his head thump back to the floor.
     
     

 
    Chapter 7
     
    "You rutting bastard !" howled Gerald, drawing his sword and charging forward.  "I'll kill you for this, so help me God!"
    Lucien calmly reached out and caught the earl's elbow before he could decapitate his youngest brother.  "Now, now, Somerfield, if you feel compelled to kill him, please do so outside.  Bloodstains are so hard to get off a new floor, you know."  He gazed down at the hapless pair, his angry sibling flat on his back, stark naked, and covered only by Celsie's petticoats.  Not to mention her partially clothed body.  "Besides, I am sure that my brother has a perfectly reasonable explanation . . ."  He gave a maddening little smile.  "Don't you, Andrew?"
    "Damn right I do!" snarled Andrew, hooking a finger around a damp lock of Celsie's hair that webbed his face and glaring up at the intruders from beneath her prone body.
    "I, for one, would like to hear it," said Lucien mildly.
    "She drank the damned solution!"
    "What solution?" thundered Somerfield.
    Lucien came forward, retrieved the blanket from the floor, and tossed it over the couple.  "My brother here devised an aphrodisiac," he explained conversationally, as though such discoveries were commonplace amongst English inventors.  He crossed his arms and looked down at his brother, a faint smirk playing about his mouth.  "Really, Andrew, you disappoint me.  I would have thought you had more sense than to test such a . . . dangerous composition on a pretty young woman."
    "I didn't test it, she asked to try it!"
    Lucien shrugged.  "Well then, I would have thought you had more sense than to say yes."
    "What do you mean, she asked to try it?" raged Somerfield.  "How dare you accuse my innocent young sister of such vulgarity!"
    Andrew met the other man's glare with hard eyes.  "I daresay your sister is no longer innocent , and I must wonder, indeed, whether she ever was ."
    Somerfield's cheeks mottled with outrage, and at that moment, Celsie finally raised her head.  Pushing herself up on one hand, she blinked and looked weakly around her, her expression one of confusion and slowly dawning horror.  "Good heavens . . . what happened?"
    "You ravished me," snapped Andrew.
    "I what ?"
    "I said, you bloody well ravished me."
    "You'll die for that accusation, de Montforte!" howled Somerfield, advancing with drawn sword.
    The duke sighed and casually snared the earl's sleeve once again.  "Given the circumstances, Somerfield, I do think it wise to retreat to the library so that you may calm down, and our young lovers here can recover both their wits and their dignity.  Andrew?  If you and Lady Celsiana would meet us downstairs in a quarter of an hour, I'm sure that reasonable satisfaction can be had for all parties involved."
    "I daresay that reasonable satisfaction has already been had by at least one of them!" roared Somerfield, glaring pointedly at Andrew.
    "Really?  Well, it wasn't me, I can tell you that much."
    Somerfield went for his sword yet again, and this time Lucien's eyes lost their amused glint as he seized the earl's arm once more.  "Really, Somerfield, you are beginning to annoy me.  It would benefit us all if you would