Awakening Amelia by Kate Pearce Read Free Book Online

night’s sleep. Measuring out a dose into one of the tea cups on the dresser, he found the jug of well water and added that to the mixture.
    A flash of lightning followed by the boom of thunder rattled the windowpanes, and he looked outside at the trees, which were bending gracefully into the wind. It sounded like cannon fire, which made his headache worsen. The backdoor latch shook free, and Marco ran over to stop the door banging against the wall. He frowned as he looked down at the key. Why hadn’t Mrs. Smith locked the door as she or Aunt Betty did every night before they went to bed?
    Was someone out there? Even as he had the thought, his gaze went to the window. A woman was silhouetted against the black sky, her hair hanging down her back as she walked down the path to the bottom of the garden.
    Without further thought, Marcus went after her, cringing as the thunder boomed right over his head and the lightning illuminated her slender form.
    “Mrs. Smith.” She didn’t appear to hear him, which wasn’t surprising given the noise of the thunder and the howl of the wind. “Mrs. Smith!”
    She half-turned toward him, her mouth open, one hand pressed to her breast.
    “Go away, Marco.”
    He took three steps closer. “You shouldn’t be out here. You could—”
    “I know what could happen to me.” She shivered. “That’s why I have to face it.”
    “You aren’t making sense. You have to come inside.” He barked the order at her.
    “I’ll come when I’m ready.”
    He reached her, grabbed her wrist and yanked her against him. Her nightgown was wet through, and she was instantly plastered to his chest, wet linen to wet linen, his warmth to her coldness.
    “Don’t play games, Mrs. Smith.”
    She wrapped her hand around his wrist and tugged at it uselessly. “You have no right to tell me what to do. If I want to stand out in a storm, you can’t stop me.”
    “I can pick you up over my shoulder like a sack of coal if I have to and take you inside.”
    She swallowed hard. “I’m afraid of storms.”
    “Then why in God’s name are we out in this one arguing about it?”
    She slumped against him. “Because I hate being afraid. I want to stop cowering under my covers when it’s like this.”
    He cupped her chin. “Will you at least come inside and talk about this before we both drown?”
    “You may go back inside whenever you want, sir.”
    With a stifled curse, he bent down, scooped her up in his arms and walked back up the path to the kitchen. He didn’t pause, but kept going up the stairs until he kicked open her bedroom door and dumped her on the bed. She bared her teeth at him as he shut her door and leaned against it.
    “You saved my life, Mrs. Smith. I cannot let you stay out there.”
    “And I cannot agree with you, sir.”
    She bit her trembling lower lip and crossed her arms over her bosom, but not before he’d noticed that her nipples were hard against the damp linen. He knew he should leave, but he couldn’t stop staring at the way her curved figure was revealed by the clinging fabric. He licked his lips. How would she taste? Her skin wet from the rain and the salt of the sea?
    “Don’t…look at me like that.”
    He leaned back against the door, aware that his clothes were equally revealing of his unexpected and inconvenient lust.
    “Like what?”
    “As if you can’t decide whether you want to strangle me or…” She suddenly stopped talking.
    “Or bed you?” Marco asked.
    She nodded.
    “And what if I told you I can’t decide that either?”
    She shivered violently, and he pushed away from the door and crouched by the fire. “You need to get warm.” He placed several more pieces of wood on the embers and added a few lumps of precious coal. “You also need to take off those wet clothes and get to bed.”
    “So do you.”
    He kept his back to her, desperately trying to shield the evidence of his arousal. “Can I find you another nightgown or something to wrap around