Devil Takes A Bride by Gaelen Foley Page A

liquid shimmer as she strode toward him, her ankle-length skirts belling slightly over her matching pink slippers.
    His entranced stare feasted on the expanse of creamy skin that the wide-scooped neckline of her dress displayed, the tempting hint of womanly cleavage. The girl was well made, he thought in admiration as she came nearer. Beautifully well made, with soft, generous curves ripe for his skilled seduction.
    He lowered his chin a bit to continue holding her gaze as she joined him at the top of the stairs. She stopped a foot or so from him, hanging back at a wary distance.
    In spite of himself, he offered her a rueful half-smile; it smoldered with approval. She regarded him in trepidation, but the blush that bloomed in her cheeks was almost as pink as her gown. He thrilled to the way her dove-gray eyes darkened to a smoky deep blue as her gaze skimmed him, in turn.
    His desire to get her alone quickened apace, but suddenly it was not so much for the sake of teaching her a lesson as it was for his own sensual enjoyment.
    â€œWell,” she said, veiling the sparkle of interest in her eyes behind her demure long lashes, “I trust you are in a better humor, my lord.”
    â€œI am now,” he agreed in a caressing tone. “You, my dear Miss Carlisle, are a very rose in this dark winter.” He stole her hand gently from her side and lifted it to his lips, bending his head to place a courtly kiss on her knuckles.
    â€œDon’t even try,” she advised softly, and at the smile of chiding amusement she sent him, Dev felt her feminine power with every fiber of his being. Withdrawing her hand from his light grasp, she turned away, daintily lifted the hem of her skirts, and started down the staircase.
    â€œTry what?” he countered, pouncing down a couple of steps to land in front of her.
    The move allowed him to block her path and put them on eye level, since she stood two steps above him. He rested his foot on the step beside her, edging nearer. Near enough to kiss her.
    Or to get slapped. She did neither, inspecting him with a skeptical stare.
    â€œLook here,” she said briskly, taking the situation in hand with a businesslike air that he found thoroughly adorable. “We seem to have started off on the wrong foot, you and I. I think it’s safe to say we both acted badly in the parlor, but it does not signify. All that matters is your aunt.”
    He gazed at her lips as she spoke. “On that, we are in perfect union.”
    She blushed at the silken innuendo and pretended not to understand his meaning. “Good. Then let us both do our best to be agreeable at dinner, hm? After that, you stay out of my way and I shall stay out of yours.”
    â€œNot a chance,” he whispered.
    She gave him a look and then went around him, as steady as his weatherly little brigantine in an Atlantic gale.
    Dev’s eyes flickered hungrily at the challenge as she flounced off ahead of him. His Cherokee friends had taught him that there were certain beasts in the forest from whom one must never run. Flight only triggered the predator’s instincts to chase.
    Somebody should have warned Miss Carlisle.
    With another pantherlike jump, he landed agilely in her path and leaned on the banister with a pleasantly flirtatious smile. “As it happens, I have a proposition for you, my dear.”
    â€œOh, I’m sure you have a whole repertoire of them, my lord.”
    â€œI speak in earnest. Hear me out.”
    She gave a bored sigh, but her eyes sparkled as she met his playful gaze. “Very well.”
    â€œI propose a truce,” he said. “I shall concede that you sent your
deceitful
letter with admirable intentions if you admit, in turn, that I indeed care for my aunt, not just her money, as evidenced by the speed of my arrival. What say you?”
    â€œHmm.” She feigned indecision, holding his stare. “I suppose we ought to at least try to get along, for it would