Cheryl Holt by Total Surrender Read Free Book Online

the door, and the knob rotated unsuccessfully, but solely because he’d possessed the foresight to secure it when he’d had the chance.
    Very softly, a female called, “Sarah . . . ?”
    “My cousin Rebecca,” Sarah whispered, and her eyes narrowed with trepidation and a hint of indignation.
    Staring her down, he dared her to form the correlation, to deduce for herself that she was in the middle of something much deeper and larger than she could handle.
    He leaned in, inhaling the smell of roses that clung about her. No gentleman by any stretch of the imagination, his lips grazed the curve of her ear. “I must be away,” he mouthed. “Keep your doors locked—at all times. Both the one that opens out to the hall, and the one between our rooms. And
go home
in the morning.”
    She turned slightly as though she might argue, and the shift brought them so close that their lips were all but joined. Only a breath separated them. Their eyes connected, and expectation hovered in the moment.
    Almost against his will, he was spurred toward her, but he was neither his impulsive brother nor his incorrigible father. He was a mature, twenty-eight-year-old man, who would control his unruly, libidinous cravings.
    He bestowed the lightest kiss, just because he could and she couldn’t refuse, but he didn’t attempt more.
    “Promise me,” he mouthed, once more.
    Belligerently, she simply smiled, and he ached to compel her acquiescence. Undeterred, her cousin tried the knob again, and he whirled away, not permitting himself a backward glance at her seductive form.
    The lass was hazardous. To his equanimity. To his wellbeing. To his keen drive for self-preservation. So he’d make certain there’d be no further opportunity for stolen kisses.
    On nimble feet, he vanished into his room, closed and barred the door behind.

Chapter Three
    Sarah tossed and turned and finally gave up any attempt at sleep. She was uncertain of the time but figured it had to be after two. The fire was out, and a glimmer of moonlight glowed in the window. The mansion was unnaturally quiet, and she lay still, listening to the beat of her heart.
    After the dashing Mr. Stevens had so fleetly fled her room, she hadn’t closed her eyes a single second. How could a woman possibly rest when so much new stimulation had been thrown at her?
    Everything was tangled in her mind: Michael Stevens, the house, the party, her brother, her cousin. The jumble of images played over and over, and she couldn’t stop contemplating what had happened and what it all meant.
    Mostly, she couldn’t quit thinking about Michael Stevens. Now that she’d had opportunity to ponder their meeting with a clearer head, she wasn’t angry or distressed. She was curious. Their corporeal adventure had been dramatic and thrilling and, though she was loath to admit it, he had left her hungry for more.
    She felt as though she’d read the initial chapters of an exciting novel, but the book had been snatched away just when she was getting to the good part, the section that would have explained the secret intricacies of the plot. Yes, it had been inappropriate for him to come into her room, and yes, it had been wrong for him to have handled her as he’d done, but regretfully, she couldn’t find the temerity to be sorry, and she wished she hadn’t become overwhelmed and bonked him on the noggin. If she hadn’t reacted so timidly, like the spinsterish virgin he’d accused her of being, she might now be cognizant of numerous libidinousparticulars about which she’d ruminated for years.
    Their encounter had been amazing, breathtaking. He’d touched her in ways she’d never imagined a man might touch a woman and . . . it had been wonderful. Shocking, too, but
wonderful
was the only accurate method of describing it.
    All these hours later, her body was alive and thrumming with an unfamiliar, exotic energy, as though it had been is hibernation and had just been awakened. Her nipples were alert and