Craving the Rake's Touch. Bronwyn Scott

that apple-green tea gown. She was lovelier than his memories had allowed; her hair richer, her eyes bluer, her laugh more alluring, her gestures more graceful. Every man in the room wanted her and his anger had stirred.

      Frankly, more had stirred than his anger. His desire to claim, to possess, had roused. The primal man in him had wanted to toss her over his shoulder and carry her out of there, had wanted to lay her down and strip that gown off her, had wanted to stake that claim in the most blatant ways a man can possess a woman, to show her what she was giving up, what she was risking by bartering herself in a hasty marriage for short-term gains.

      He’d meant it when he’d said she was putting herself in a dangerous position. Marriage in Town was permanent. Marriage not only gave a man rights to a woman’s reputation, her family and her connections, but it also gave him rights to her bed and to her body. He would not allow Sarah to surrender those things carelessly, not when her father had been so judicious in protecting them.