“I need to be fed.” He climbed onto the edge of the bed with a playful growl and tugged the sheet off, his mouth going slack. Gracious, she loved the way he looked at her. Bronwyn had wondered as the months had gone by if he would ever tire of her or lose interest, but his eyes always glowed with that scorching combination of lust and love. “Not even the Venus de Milo can compare to your perfection.”

She rolled her eyes, though she blushed at the praise. “I think the Duke of Thornbury is addled with hunger as well.”

“Hunger for you,” he said, climbing up her naked body and kissing each of her breasts and then her lips. With a deft twist of his fingers, he released the locking mechanism on the handcuffs and placed them on the bedside table. He brought her arms down and she moaned softly as he massaged her wrists. “Sore?”

“No, but that feels good.”

She wrapped her arms around his back and traced the muscles she’d ogled before from the rounded tops of his shoulders to the firm globes of his arse. He was so hard. Everything about him was hard, including the part between her thighs.

He peered down at her. “I thought you were hungry?”

Her blush deepened. “Well, when it comes to you, I am voracious, it seems.”

“The feeling is entirely mutual, my love.”

With a laugh, he took her into his arms, burying his nose in her hair and inhaling deeply. He could never get enough of her scent, he’d told her. Valentine had loved it so much that she’d had to have another batch of the special soap made and delivered from the apothecary.

His stomach chose that moment to give an obnoxious growl, and she laughed, poking him in the chest.

“What do you say we feed each other,” she suggested. “And then we can spend the rest of the day playing try-to-catch-the-naughty-spy. That way you won’t collapse when the dastardly and devious Kestrel puts you through your paces.”

A slow grin limned his lips. “I knew I married you for that superior intellect of yours.”

“Don’t you forget it, Duke.”

Her husband took her mouth in the sweetest of kisses, gentle but with enough bite to make her swoon. “Never, my brilliant, beautiful, wicked love.”

Author’s Note

Research is one of my favorite things to do, especially when delving into historical timelines and trying to figure out how to tie a fictional story into actual events. The idea for the Kestrel—my international female operative—going to Philadelphia with information to thwart Lincoln’s abduction on March 17, 1865, came from the fact that no one really knew what made President Lincoln change locations at the last minute, which foiled John Wilkes Booth’s abduction plans (even though the president was assassinated by the same man a month later). I thought it would be an interesting tie-in for the story.