A Brother's Price by 111325346436434 Read Free Book Online

Highness, please.’’ He tried to sidestep, but she moved with him.
    ‘‘You desire me,’’ she noted, running her hand over his body.
    ‘‘I desire to marry well,’’ he murmured hoarsely. ‘‘For fifteen years I have stayed chaste and pure. I would not like to fail two months shy of the goal.’’
    She chuckled. ‘‘I’m amazed that you’ve seen any women besides your sisters.’’
    ‘‘They take me to social events.’’ He was babbling now, unable to stop. ‘‘How else would families know we seek a marriage alliance? We go to fairs, festivals, and such. The girls compete in races and wrestling, and the boys talk about how their sisters make them crazy and how lonely it is, being the only man among so many women.’’ He moaned softly now, as her hand had not A BROTHER’S PRICE
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    stayed idle. ‘‘That is nice,’’ he admitted, ‘‘but I wish—’’
    Truthfully he didn’t really want it to stop. ‘‘I wish—’’
    She stepped him back, pressing him against the stones of the hearth, and kissed him tenderly. Her mouth was sweet, and warm, and electric on his. He couldn’t find anyplace safe to put his hands; they tended to flutter like birds looking for a roosting place. He whimpered partially in delight of the many sensations bombarding him, partially in the helplessness of his situation.
    ‘‘Highness—um—I don’t think—we shouldn’t be—oh, gods—I—’’ While his mind raced to form some sentence, any sentence, he stumbled on an awful thought. If not for this once, the only intimacy in my life will be with the horsey-faced, heavy-handed Brindle women. Who would know what we’ve done? Who would guess? Who would tell? Certainly not my sisters. With those thoughts, he allowed his hands to alight on her hips, then explore upward, under her nightshirt.
    In the last year of his life, Jerin’s father had told him how one man could keep ten women happy. It had been a frank, embarrassing, sometimes mystifying set of discussions. There hadn’t been an opportunity for Jerin to try any of the techniques outside of his increasingly erotic dreams. It was somewhat satisfying, judging by the princess’s reaction, to discover he remembered a goodly portion of his father’s lessons.
    They could have taken the last step. They lay on the warm flagstones before the cooking fire, glistening with sweat. She reached for him, his body responded as before, but this time, the edge taken off his desire, he was able to stop her.
    ‘‘No.’’ He kissed her to soften the refusal. ‘‘To go this far was foolish. To go on would be stupid.’’
    She gazed at him, her hair reflecting back the flamered firelight. ‘‘It was wonderful.’’
    That pulled a wry smile out of him. He caught her 36
    Wen Spencer
    hand before it could cause more mischief, and kissed her palm, nuzzling the sensitive spot on her wrist. ‘‘We can’t do more. It would ruin me.’’
    She looked away, watching instead the dance of firelight on the whitewashed ceiling. She was silent for many minutes, to the point that he was afraid he had angered her. ‘‘You are right. You are not yet old enough to marry, and I seduced you in your mothers’ kitchen. It would be best that I don’t take your virginity on your mothers’ Hearth.’’
    She gave it the old name. Jerin vaguely remembered that there were ancient rules of hospitality tied to the Hearth, remnants of days when starting a fire didn’t mean just using a match, and homes consisted of just one large room.
    ‘‘Please’’—Jerin
    reached
    for
    his
    abandoned
    nightshirt—‘‘let me go back to my room and you go back to yours?’’
    ‘‘I could come tuck you in,’’ she murmured.
    ‘‘We’d wake my brothers.’’
    She startled. ‘‘There are more?’’
    He told her his brothers’ names and ages. ‘‘Please don’t tell my sisters that I’ve told you. They’re afraid that you’ll carry me off.’’
    ‘‘Or seduce you in the