Christie by Veronica Sattler Read Free Book Online

they stole up around his neck.
    It was then that he released her mouth, and looking directly into her mesmerized eyes, he whispered hoarsely to her "And how will you tell him of your own desires, dear Christie? I've found you woman enough to have them now, but are you woman enough to handle them?"
    Just then, footsteps were heard coming from the drawing room, and Christie tore herself away from him and frantically sought to compose herself.
    "Ah, here we are, Garrett. Sorry I took so long but I found I had mislaid these beauties, and Celia had to help me find them," said Charles. "Oh, my sister asks that you excuse her for the remainder of the evening. She's weary from an unusually full day and has retired early."
    In a low voice whose shakiness only Garrett noticed, Christie returned, " That was probably an excellent idea Aunt Celia had, Father. I'm afraid I find myself no less exhausted than she this evening. It must be all the fuss we've been involved in to ready things for the ball. Please make my apologies to the servants for not staying for the coffee and sweets. I, too, would like to retire early. If you will excuse me, Garrett?" She threw him a complex look that was part venom, part bewilderment, and part fright. Then, kissing Charles gently on the cheek, she bade them both a good night.

Chapter Four
    Reaching the haven of her bedchamber, Christie paused for a moment, leaning against the door she had just closed hastily behind her. There, in the darkness, she closed her eyes and tried to still the trembling that possessed her whole body.
    "Oh God." she thought, "he's the most awful, detestable man I've ever met. taking advantage of me like that - the liberties he - " But she couldnt finish because as she thought the words, she suddenly realized it wasnt Garrett Randall's actions themselves, which so troubled her; it was her own disturbing sensations that he engendered, the treacherous way her body, even now reacted when she thought of those big, broad arms holding her, that magnificent mouth taking hers. She was frightened of teh responding desire she now knew herself capable of as she continued to picture him making love to her half-willing body.
    Such thoughts and emotions were truly new to her, for Christie was completely innocent of men. Oh, there had been the few half-stolen pecks on her cheeks and lips on the occasion of her seventeenth birthday party - Bruce Carlton and Beau Richardson having been the chief instigators, followed by several other brash young hopefuls she found buzzing around her lately; but Christie's interest in the opposite gender in no way extended to these lads, for she was accustomed to the company of men - men such as her father and Barnaby Rutledge and Timothy Ryan, the taciturn old Irishman who was her father's head groom and trainer - mature men who had something to say beyond idle conversation when a woman talked with them. Such men, when they were presented with her sweet young company, treated her as if she had something to offer besides her curving body and stunning face. But Garrett Randall represented an entirely new equation where men were concerned. How did
    he come to wreak such devastating havoc on her?
    Suddenly, she moved to light some of the candles in the sconces and candelabra in the room and then proceeded to do something she had done only once before, and that had been several years ago. First, she began to remove her clothes, a difficult task without Merrie's help. Then, stripped down to only her thin chemise, she opened the wardrobe and stood before the full-length mirror inside it.
    She was, as Aunt Margaret was fond of reminding everyone, "tall for a woman," some five feet, seven inches in all. A good measure of her height had always belonged to long coltish which, before they developed into the well-shaped limbs she now examined, had at one point threatened to pose an ever-lengthening, gawky threat to her achieving the grateful proportions regarded as comely in a