Free Rogue for a Night by Jenna Petersen

was quiet for a moment, long enough that Rage’s chest tightened. Then she shook her head. “Not regret,” she said softly. “There was too much passion and pleasure for regret, and you certainly gave me enough time to consider this by leaving, so it wasn’t as if I was completely swept away from my senses.”
    “Thank you,” he teased.
    She laughed. “You know what I meant. Only that I made the decision to be with you with a fully functioning mind. Knowing the consequences. I just hadn’t thought…”
    She trailed off and Rage moved forward. “Thought?”
    One delicate shoulder lifted slightly. “I have never been with another man beyond my husband.”
    Rage flinched and hoped she hadn’t seen the reaction.
    “I see.”
    She looked at him. “No, I do not think that you do. It isn’t that I compared you. That would be dreadfully unfair to both you and to his memory. But it is a very odd thing, to have thought for so long that I would share my body with only one man and then to… find another.”
    Rage tilted his head. “Odd, but not bad?”
    “Not bad,” she reassured him in that gentle tone he’d heard her gift to so many others. “And I believe the next time I will not even have these tangled thoughts.”
    Rage took a long step back at her surprisingly bold statement. “Next time,” he repeated as he tried to recall exactly how one breathed. Was it in and out, for the action seemed very foreign to him in that moment.
    She nodded. “Yes. Unless you do not wish to continue this… what would you call it? This affair with me.”
    Rage’s chest all but puffed up with the idea that he could have her again. That this time he could make love to her slowly, on his bed, for example. That he could study her every reaction and sigh in order to exploit those things to give her more pleasure.
    “I do not feel the need to label what we share,” he said softly. “Only to tell you that it can be whatever you like. Last as long as you wish for it to last. You get to choose, Lucinda.”
    Lucinda’s eyes went wide and she blinked a few times before her wide smile thrilled him. “What a novel concept.”
    “Then enjoy it.”
    Her smile fell, replaced by a sensual expression that would have impressed even the most experienced courtesan. She nodded. “Oh, I intend to do just that. To the fullest.”
    She touched her hair and laughed. “But at this moment, I think the best thing for me to do is to sneak back into the house before anyone sees me looking like a wanton.”
    “Would you like me to escort you?” he asked.
    She shook her head. “No. The house is but a short way away. And if I were to be caught in your company, certainly no one could be persuaded that we weren’t… well, doing exactly what we did do together. No, you go back up to the party since you look none the worse for our encounter. And I will see you tomorrow?”
    He stepped forward and took her hand. Gently, he drew her forward to kiss her one last time… at least for this night. She melted into his embrace. It was different than before. Now that they had made love, she fit differently into his arms. She responded quicker, she relaxed more. It took everything in him not to just sweep her into his arms and have her again, either here or back in his chamber in the house.
    In fact, it was Lucinda, who stepped away, slightly off kilter, pink with exertion and pleasure.
    “Good night, Ronan,” she murmured before she scurried from the gazebo back up the path toward the kitchen entrance to the manor house.
    He watched her make her escape, memorizing each foot fall, the way she held her skirt. And he didn’t look away until she had disappeared around a corner. Only then did he turn and brace himself on the gazebo wall with both hands.
    Normally he was a man who planned his every move. A fighter by heart, not just by action. He wanted to plan for his next attack, his next defense. But as much as he had driven this affair with Lucinda, already it