He hadn’t ever laughed while kissing a woman before, but both responses rose together. His lips took hers. His hands lifted to cup her jaw and trace over delicate ears.
All the while, laughter wove between them, trading between their lips and teeth and tongues. She kissed exactly how he’d expected. Complete abandon and rapidly growing joy.
He leaned up even as she leaned down. Her hands came to rest on his shoulders, thumbs tucking beneath the open collar. Those two touches of skin were more than enough. Their lips clung, and Ian and Lottie laughed at the same time. There wasn’t enough air between them. He’d lost control of the situation.
His body woke. Wanted. Needed.
He didn’t dare lower his hands from her face, but he tilted them. Let his thumbs coast over that tender flesh under her jaw. He felt it move and work as she so eagerly kissed him, and he loved that sense of delicacy, with that extra hint of tenderness.
She was gilt. A shiny and beautiful layer over harder, more base emotions underneath. He wanted to see underneath that artificial brightness.
That wasn’t his right. He didn’t get to peel her apart the way he needed, because he’d be damned if he stayed long enough to put her back together. He’d return to his regular existence soon enough, in order to reassure Etta their world was safe. Maybe he’d revisit London to find a wife next Season, but he’d find someone more of his own sort. Ordinary.
He didn’t get to keep Lottie, which meant that he didn’t have the right to take everything he wanted.
His laughter faded.
With his hands as gentle as he could manage, he pushed her away, but he couldn’t resist one last nip of her bottom lip. Flesh gave under his teeth.
She didn’t straighten fully. With her cloud of red hair, she hovered over him like a depraved angel. He liked it. He liked her a hell of a lot, for that matter. Especially the way she grinned. “See? Perfect.”
He chuckled again, until he realized that he’d been unable to let go. His fingertips smoothed over her soft skin, from her nape to her shoulders. “I concede the point.”
Darke London
Julian Darke was only a newborn when he was abandoned on the doorstep of a gentleman doctor. Though raised with love, he is driven to discover his true origins.
Convinced Sir Thaddeus Ormond knows something, Julian shadows him one night—and is shocked to see a young woman thrown from Ormond’s carriage and accosted by a thug. Julian manages to save her life, but not her face and hands from horrific injuries.
Nellie Barchester doesn’t recognize the scarred, disfigured stranger in the mirror. Though the gifted doctor and engineer has done his best to repair the damage, scars ravage her body, and chill her soul with the realization that her own husband may have plotted her death.
Julian’s tenderness is a balm to her soul, and Nellie is drawn to the edge of passion by a man not repelled by her deformities. But as their pursuit of the truth draws them into London’s underbelly, they cross the path of a ruthless enemy who will stop at nothing to fulfill his schemes.
Warning: Can a brilliant but troubled doctor find happiness with a woman scarred both inside and out? A hint of the supernatural plus a night of passion spice up this Uncanny Chronicle.
Copyright Page
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
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Darke London
Copyright © 2013 by Coleen Kwan
ISBN: 978-1-61921-557-3
Edited by Anne Scott
Cover by Kanaxa
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: September 2013
