Lost in Pleasure by Marguerite Kaye Read Free Book Online

prove her
wrong. It seemed, sadly, that her head had the right of it as ever.
    ‘I thought I understood you, but you’re behaving totally
illogically,’ Richard said, his confusion turning to irritation tinged with a
hint of panic. ‘I thought you were different.’
    ‘And now you’re discovering that underneath it all, I’m just
like any other woman. So deal with it. Logical or not, this has to end.
Tonight.’
    ‘Devil take it, Errin, you can’t possibly mean you’re just
going to sit in that damned chair and disappear and not ever come back?’
    ‘I’m saying exactly that. I have no choice, Richard. You’ve
left me with no choice.’
    ‘No.’ He pulled her roughly into his arms. ‘No, I won’t let
you. You can’t mean it. It doesn’t make sense. You’re wrong. I’ll show you
you’re wrong.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘If I have to explain, then it’s pointless,’ he said, using her
own words against her like weapons. Then he kissed her.
    She tried to resist him, but that too was pointless. He would
not be resisted, and she did not want to resist him. Instead, she returned his
kiss with a kind of brutal passion, biting his lip, devouring his mouth,
savaging his lips, punishing him for not seeing, not wanting, not being able to
give her what she so desperately needed, knowing she was being unfair yet unable
to stop. She pushed him back onto the chaise longue, kneeling over him, trapping
him, kissing him hard, passionately, rousing in him a similar storm. He pulled
her close, breathlessly close, clutching at her bottom through the silk of her
dress to press her down onto his throbbing erection.
    She tore at the starched folds of his neckcloth, the silver
buttons of his black evening coat, desperate to touch bare flesh. She moaned, a
deep, earthy shudder of a moan, when Richard responded by tearing the neckline
of her dress to free her breasts, to cover the soft flesh of them in hungry
kisses, to pluck a tearing response from her as he sucked hard on her blossoming
nipples.
    She had an overwhelming urge to lower herself onto him without
ceremony, lifting her petticoats without finesse to sheathe him inside her, to
possess him. She tried to, fumbling with the buttons of his breeches, longing to
feel the hard, hot length of him filling her, for it was both their punishment
and their reward.
    But as she fumbled and tore at his clothing, he stilled her.
His kisses became velvet soft and cajoling. His hands coaxed not sharp pleasure
from her but liquid sensation, stroking her, breathing calm into her as he would
when breaking a wild filly, and she was instantly tamed.
    ‘This is why you’re wrong,’ he said to her, licking the soft
underside of her breast before capturing her hands, lifting them to his mouth
and kissing her fingers one by one. ‘And this is why,’ he said, stroking her
hair, kissing her ear, her neck, lifting her from him, standing her before him
so that he could admire her physical perfection. The graceful line of her spine
as he unhooked her dress. The crook of her elbows as he eased the silk down over
her arms. Her shoulder blades as he unlaced her corsets. The valley between her
breasts as he took off her chemise. The gentle swell of her belly, the crease at
the top of her thighs as he removed her pantaloons. The back of her knees as her
garters were untied. By the time she stood before him completely naked, she was
his, and at that moment, she didn’t care if he saw that.
    In the candlelight, Richard had a dark and brooding presence
that would be intimidating were it not so sensual. He disposed quickly of his
own clothes, dropping them carelessly onto the floor, moulding her naked body to
his, making her purr with contentment as her curves met his planes, as his
erection pressed into her sex, as his hands stroked and his mouth licked.
    By the time he pushed her back onto the chaise, spreading her
legs to settle his mouth on the soft folds of her damp, hot sex, Errin felt as
if she were