All the Sweet Tomorrows by Bertrice Small Read Free Book Online Page A

her husband. They both knew it. Along with her business partner, Robert Small, he was the best friend she had in all the world, and she had treated him shabbily by coming to him, and asking, nay, practically begging that he service her as her prize stallion serviced her mares. She flushed with shame at that thought, and said, “Oh, Adam! I beg your pardon. Let me up. I shall go from you now for I had no right to come here at all.”
    “Nay!” He gently pinioned her beneath him. “Have you become a wanton tease, sweet Skye, that having roused the beast in me you would now leave me?” He laughed softly. “You said you needed me, little girl. Well, now I need you, and I am weary of talk. Talk is for the afterward.” His mouth made feathery movements down her body in a swift assault that caught her totally by surprise and left her breathless.
    “Adam!”
she gasped.
    “Be silent, my darling!” he answered her, and then his tongue was gently seeking at the honey of her, sending small love darts of pure blazing heat into her very soul. His tongue was wildfire, stroking at the velvet of her greatest secret; rousing her to pleasures both known and unknown. Her beautiful body responded with the hunger of one long denied, and indeed she had had no lovemaking since the fifth month of her last pregnancy. She moaned as the liquid fire bathed her body, as his tongue sought and found, tantalized and pleasured, loved and pained her in both body and soul.
    Adam de Marisco took great delight in Skye’s response, and when at last she was writhing and creamy with her passion he sat back on his haunches, his great lance thrusting forward. Lifting the almost unconscious woman up, he lowered her carefully onto his weapon as he cradled her in his arms. He was gentle, for she was tight with her abstinence, and as he filled her she cried out her rapture. Together they rocked back and forth until Skye shuddered violently and with a whimper went limp. Satisfied that she had attained her fulfillment, he took his own, laying her back now on his enormous bed to tower over her as he thrust deep and hard and sweet within her throbbing sheath. Then, satisfied, he withdrew from her, and rolled away to catch his breath again before he drew her back into the comfort of his arms.
    They slept for several hours, awakening as the early light came through the single window in the tower bedchamber. She knew that he slept no longer by the sound of his breathing, and for a few long minutes she remained silent, unable to speak, not knowing what she might say to him. He solved the problem for her, saying quietly in his deep voice, “How can any mortal woman give such pleasure, little girl? How I wish that I were the man for you, Skye O’Malley.”
    “I wish you would wed with me, Adam, for you’re the strongest man I have ever known. I have always felt safe with you, and you know you’ve always told me that without a man my wealth and beauty make me vulnerable to those in power. I am ashamed to have used you so, but I did need you.
I did!
”
    “Skye, there is no wrong in a woman desiring a man, but ’tis not reason enough for a marriage between us. You know that.” He laughed in an effort to lighten the situation. “I cannot help but think that there isn’t a man at Elizabeth’s court who wouldn’t have sold his soul to be in my boots last night.” He raised himself up on an elbow and looked down at her. “You do understandhowever, why, I will not seriously entertain your proposal?”
    “I understand, Adam.”
    “We are friends,” he smiled down at her, “and I should hate you to meet a man you could really love and turn him away because of mistaken loyalty to me.”
    “There will be no one else,” she said firmly. “God’s bones, Adam! I have outlived four husbands in fifteen years. Dom, of course, was no loss, the pig! Khalid, however, and Geoffrey and Niall are another matter. I loved them, Adam, and I cannot go through the death of