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Gabe and Rafe even tasted different Rafe tasted clean, like sun-warrass Gabe tasted like mortal sin--not like the shadow he insisted he was, but like the wicked thoughts a woht, in the security of her own bed

I would know instantly, Ientleh, both kinds of kisses made her ache, a muddled, treacherous heat low in her sto away to nibble on her lip and then slide his way back into her h and tier behind theasp

"H hands still cupping her face, and he bent back to herher again, and he must have rehts flee, and she just slipped into the led in her hair, the smell and the taste of hi in a field Scandalous And even worse, a little voice inside I of that hard body on top of hers

She didn’t open her eyes ien," he said His voice sounded odd

"Yes?" She kept her eyes closed There was so Rafe She couldn’t quite work it out He was just Rafe--her guardian, the thorn in her side, the man who shook her on the dance floor, the man she called a pickled drunk…

"I’e Kissing and e" His voice was deep, and casual for such an important topic

"There’s no need to put it any way at all," I up "Where have I putyou to marryher brush the grass from her skirts, and then he helped her to her feet "Rafe," she said, "why are you doing this?"

"Because we kissed in a field"

She couldn’t fault that logic "It’s just you and me," she said patiently "I expect itfor you to kiss a lady after ten years" She met his eyes for the first time "But you would never wish to be ine if I were about the house all the tiine it quite easily We both know that you pri"

She started walking toward the horses, talking over her shoulder "Go find another wo"

"You are suggesting," Rafe said, sounding as if he were entirely enjoying hi deprived of the pleasures of the flesh for years, I am foolishly enslaved by base desires"

She stopped and looked at hie?"

"Of course," he said "You and Draven had a e that was precisely like that of every other member of the ton: ely hard to hear it drawn up in such a neat package "When I en said, "I want to be the one pursued, Rafe Pursued madly I don’t want to marry someone just because he kissed me, and that kiss was only because I happened to be there That’s hoith Draven, you know He kissed me, and then he said ’If we elope, it’ll turnbedlamite’ That was his proposal" She admitted it fiercely

Rafe’s eyes were sy

"The proposal that I accept, if I ever accept one, will be planned It will be formal It will not follow an inappropriate kiss in a field or elsewhere, and there will be nonow

"We should not be having this conversation," I that she had turned pink with the fury of it "I’ to marry you," she added lamely