The Secrets of a Scoundrel by Gaelen Foley Page A

give her some advantage, after all, just to make it reasonably fair. As they both got into position on the lawn, standing a few feet across from each other, Nick raised the wooden practice sword before his face in a formal salute.
    She did the same. “Prepare to die, thou scurvy knave,” she taunted with a pleasant smile. “En garde,” she added. Then she attacked.
    Nick defended himself in delight. She was quick and agile, and what was more, and he could see her sharp mind working as she skillfully parried his blows, feinting to the right and coming at him from the left.
    “Not bad for a girl.”
    “Fight back! You’re not even trying.”
    “You’re a lady!”
    “Oh, am I?” With that, she swiped her dainty foot behind his heel and tripped him.
    Nick fell back with a merry yelp and landed on his elbows on the ground. He looked up at her for a second in shock, then immediately rebounded, vaulting acrobatically to his feet.
    She arched a brow in aloof amusement. “A pretty move.”
    “You haven’t seen anything yet.”
    “Show me,” she taunted in a whisper, circling his blade with her own.
    Nick let out a lusty laugh.
    She lunged as if to run him through; he captured her extended arm, stepping back beside her; she brought her dagger neatly across her body to demonstrate how she still could’ve stabbed him in the eye.
    “Well, well,” he murmured, laughing softly.
    Then he tripped her in return, brushing her feet out from under her so that she went tumbling down in a whoosh of skirts and petticoats. She landed on her back, her chest heaving, both hands still clutching her sword and dagger.
    Nick dropped to his knees astride her, plunging his practice blade into the soft turf by her head.
    She tried holding him at bay as best she could, laying the wooden blade flat against his chest, but he ignored it, disarming her, and pinning her wrists to the ground.
    “Damn you!” she said through breathless laughter, struggling against his hold to no avail, thrashing beneath him.
    “Now, now. You’ll only make it worse for yourself if you fight me. This doesn’t have to hurt. Unless you want it to.”
    She glared at him, but there was more than one type of frustration in her deep blue eyes.
    Nick stared down into them, wanting with everything in him to make love to her. “Never play-fight against a trained assassin, my dear. And now for the coup de grace.”
    “Ruthless,” she accused him, arching her neck as she tried in vain to sit up.
    “Very. Lie back for me.” Leaning closer, closer, he bent his head until his lips hovered at her throat; he was panting more from lust than from exertion.
    “Nicholas,” she warned, trying to sound stern and failing miserably, for her voice came out as a sensual whimper, full of unspoken, unacknowledged need.
    He wanted with everything in him to fulfill it.
    “There, there,” he whispered with a wicked smile as his lips grazed her throat. “Would you like me to deal you a little death, my lady? Un petit mort? ”
    Otherwise known as an orgasm.
    She huffed and shook her head, her cheeks turning even redder. She refused to meet his gaze. “You are a demon.”
    “But I’m your demon now. So what do you say? I have rethought my position on this thing. Now that I know you’re not demanding it of me, I think I’d be happy to pleasure you.”
    “Thanks, but I’m rather busy at the moment,” she answered dryly.
    Amusement danced in his eyes, but he couldn’t stop staring at her creamy chest. “Perhaps some other time, then?”
    “You wish.”
    “Guilty as charged.” Not wishing to scare her, he released her wrists and ventured a light caress on her cheekbone with his fingertips.
    She looked up at him uncertainly at last.
    “You are a remarkable woman, Virginia Burke,” he murmured. “Thank you for getting me out of that cage. I was dying in there. My soul was dying.”
    “I know,” she whispered, reaching up to cup his cheek in return for a fleeting moment.
    He