A Scandalous Proposal by Julia Justiss Read Free Book Online Page B

thanks, but when he’d boldly admitted his desire, she’d avowed her own. What could be plainer than that?
    He remembered the darting thrill yesterday when he’d touched her lip. He’d felt it in every nerve, and she’d felt it, too—he’d seen the shocked recognition in her eyes immediately after. Perhaps attraction didn’t burn in her as fiercely as in him, but she was hardly indifferent.
    Mayhap, having been years without a husband and lover, she was as ready as he.
    Well, she was unlikely to be that ready, he conceded. But she was drawn to him, he was certain of it, and he could build on that.
    He would build upon it, court her until she welcomed him with anticipation as fervent as his own. Never, he vowed, had any woman been wooed as persistently, passionately and persuasively as he intended to woo Emily Spenser.
    But to do so, he must finish his port and depart before her intoxicating closeness destroyed what little was left of his control. Before he did something rash.
    He didn’t want this to be rash or hurried. He wanted their time together to be like her—perfection.
    The door across the hall opened and Emily emerged. His mouth went dry and the glass slipped from his fingers. Smiling, she walked toward him clad only in a night rail.
    â€™Twas not the flannel garment of a prim, virtuous middle-class matron. Oh no, the most skilled of courtesans would have delighted in how this gown of slithering, shining emerald silk swept from her shoulders over her full breasts to her narrow waist and past rounded hips to whisper about her thighs and calves as she walked. It clung to the taunting outline of pebbled nipples, the round of belly, the tempting fistful of curls at the junction of her thighs.
    Beyond speech, he merely stared as she halted before him. Her violet eyes, enormous, caught his dazzled gaze as a drift of delicate scent, lavender and heat and woman, dizzied him.
    â€œMy lord?” she said softly.
    Any reservations he may have retained crumbled. With trembling hands he drew her down beside him on the settee. His blood pounding in his ears, every sense knife sharp, hegently touched the faint bruise on her lip with one finger, then lowered his mouth over hers.
    She tasted sweet, ah so sweet, of coffee and wine and Emily. Mindful of her hurt, he licked her lips gently, gently sought entry. She opened her mouth, and when her tongue met his, every iota of control dissolved.
    With a cry he crushed her to him. Leaning her back against the cushions, he plundered the depths of her mouth, nibbling, sucking, voracious. With fevered impatience, he moved lower, tracing the satin length of collarbone, tasting the pulse at the hollow of her throat, then lower still, forcing the satin bodice beneath her breasts so it thrust them up and out to him, like trophies.
    He cupped the warm, heavy rounds, licked their fullness, drew a nipple into his mouth. He thought she gasped when he squeezed the breast to take in yet more of its fullness, then withdrew to lave the sides and nibble the nipple’s rigid top.
    He couldn’t seem to get close enough, kiss deeply enough. She tried to help, truly she did, struggling to pull off his neckcloth and unbutton his shirt as he carried her across the hallway and shouldered open her chamber door. She was fumbling with the buttons at his straining breeches when he laid her on the narrow bed, but impatient, he wrenched the cloth free. When his manhood sprang forth and she touched him, an explosion of heat and need shut down his brain entirely.
    How he got her gown off without ripping it to shreds he couldn’t remember, but somehow she was lying under him, all warm, glorious naked skin. He managed to restrain himself long enough to tangle his fingers in the thatch of dark curls and part her, to briefly taste her fragrant womanhood. Then he was plunging into her, burying himself as she tilted her hips to take him deeper, and the whole world erupted