Free Seducing the Rake (Mad, Bad and Dangerous Heroes) by Christina Skye Page A

summer. The month had become two and then three. And she had never expected how it would end.
    How precious were those memories…
    Right up until the night Tony had stumbled across her while she lay on the smooth foredeck, studying the constellations spread like winking jewels across the black sky. That night he had said her name with surprise, with gruff tenderness—and with something that might almost have been regret.
    Then he had kissed her.
    Just once. Softly and slowly, as if the kiss were pulled from him against his will. Even now, Chessy remembered how her heart had dived to her stomach, how her throat had turned hot and achy at his touch.
    Most of all, she remembered how thoroughly right that intimate slide of lip and tongue had felt.
    And how much more she had wanted from him.
    Innocent that she was, she hadn’t understood when the kiss had changed, when a simple gesture of friendship had exploded into something entirely different.
    Something hot and reckless, as dark and potent as the midnight currents streaming beneath their boat.
    In that one swift moment, friendship had turned to unguarded passion. Morland had pulled her roughly against his urgent body. His fingers had dug into her hair while he guided her to meet the hot search of his tongue.
    To her shame Chessy had responded, with an instinct as old as time. With a hunger that matched his own.
    But the kiss had been over before it ever began.
    Cursing harshly, Morland had wrenched free of her trembling fingers and stood frozen in the soft starlight, in the warm tropical wind.
    His face had been as hard as glass.
    He had left the next day, without a word of explanation or farewell.
    And Chessy’s heart had broken cleanly, irrevocably in two.
    She had sworn she would never forgive him, and she had not.
    Nor had she forgotten.
    For ten long years she had carried the memories, not by design but because she had no choice. They were indelibly carved on her young heart.
    Now here the man was again, with the same devil-may-care charm, with that same damnable ability to twist her up in knots inside.
    Worst of all, he had the same knack for making her feel like a grubby and very clumsy fifteen-year-old.
    Which was precisely what she had been, Chessy thought. But she was no longer. Now she was a woman grown, with enough strength and skill to fell a man in seconds.
    She straightened and stared up at the Englishman, treating him to a full dose of the hauteur she had acquired in the last ten adventurous and sometimes hair-raising years. “No one calls me Francesca anymore, my lord. I would be pleased if you would remember that. It is Miss Cameron to you.”
    A hint of wickedness flashed in Morland’s eyes. “Of course, Miss Cameron. I quite forgot. Perhaps it was the sight of all that soot on your cheeks. Or possibly it was the baggy gown. No, on second thought it was the memory of you brawling with that coal merchant.”
    “Brawling! I never brawl, you—”
    Chessy broke into a liquid stream of volatile Mandarin, which raised pointed questions about Morland’s parentage and antecedents stretching back twenty-three generations.
    Morland listened appreciatively. “You always did know your way around a full-blooded curse.” His lips curved in a smile. “Thank the Lord I never learned much Chinese during my stay in the Orient. I’ve a feeling what you just said would blister my ears.”
    But this time Chessy made no answer. It seemed her exertions had finally caught up with her. Her pulse came light and ragged, and she was finding it strangely hard to breathe.
    Fire and fiddle! All she needed was to eat and then rest a little. It hadn’t helped that she’d been up before dawn studying the outside of the next house she was to enter.
    Lord Morland’s house, in point of fact.
    Then on her return there had been bills to discuss with Swithin and two local urchins to interview about the habits and peculiarities of Morland’s household. After that she had had to