Mistletoe Menage by Molly Ann Wishlade Read Free Book Online Page A

and beautiful with youth and happiness, and his eyes
sparkled silver-blue like the snow under the crisp winter sun. He reached out
and caressed Guy’s cheek, rasping his thumbnail against the stubble on Guy’s
skin.
    “How was she?”
    Guy glanced at his feet and
cleared his throat.
    “Guy?” Edward’s heart pounded
hard beneath his white cotton shirt as an idea began to unfurl in his mind.
“Guy?”
    The artist met his gaze and
smiled. “She is…as you described. Beautiful, cultured, well-mannered. Though she was also…”
    “Tell me!” Edward was surprised
at his own tone. He had sent Guy out to Anne, knowing she was a widow now. She
had been widowed eighteen months, in fact, but he’d been abroad when her
husband had passed, and only returned six months since with Guy in his employ.
As a widow, previously married to a much older man, Edward hoped she would now
be ripe for the picking. All his memories of Anne were of a tender, voluptuous,
sensual woman ready for marriage and mating. He had held back from taking her
during their courtship in spite of his burning desire to make her his as soon
as possible. He had been prepared to wait until they were safely wed before he
bedded her, but then she had given herself to another. A fat, greasy
businessman who was surely no match for her elegance
and beauty. Yes, it was true that she had no family name to match his own, but he had not cared a jot for that. After seeing
his parents’ loveless marriage, Edward had harbored no intentions of marrying
for money and social connections. Perhaps he had been a romantic, a dreamer, a
fool. Yes…he had been a fool because he had believed that she loved him as much
as he loved her. She had broken his heart in two.
    As he would
hers. With Guy’s assistance.
    “I went to her home as agreed,
Edward. It didn’t take much to encourage her to allow me to sketch her.” Guy
didn’t finish his sentence but Edward knew what he meant. Anne had allowed the
artist to see her naked, in all her milky-white-skinned beauty as he had longed
to do. Well, he would see her thus. And soon. But it might take one or two more visits from Guy
first.
    “But you did not…”
    Guy shook his head. “No I did not
take her fully. I kissed her and caressed her and tasted her. She really has
the sweetest flavor, like honey-cake and madeira wine.” Guy licked his lips and
Edward pulled him into his arms and kissed him hard. He pressed his tongue
between Guy’s teeth and plundered the younger man’s mouth, desperate to find
some trace of Anne. Guy responded to him, running his hands down over Edward’s
behind, and squeezing his firm cheeks until Edward knew that they’d continue
this until they were both spent.
    Edward pulled away and stared
into Guy’s eyes. “Will she surrender? Do you really believe she will?”
    Something flashed across Guy’s
face and Edward wondered at it for a moment. Was it guilt? Regret?
    “I believe that she will, Edward.
I truly believe that. She is lonely and needy. I don’t think she has been loved
as a woman should. She is not like the others.” His golden eyebrows met above
his aquiline nose as he frowned. “They are grasping, clawing, and it’s all
about them. But Anne Blackburn, she responded so sweetly and so tenderly that
it was hard to leave her. The others I could not wait to escape from once I had
attended to their needs but with Anne…”
    Edward swallowed hard. He could
see in Guy that same affection growing for Anne that he had once felt. Was it
because Guy was his lover and they were in some way similar in their tastes?
Guy did not usually lust after women. He had lain with women of the ton for
Edward’s sake so that his plan would work, but when they took a woman together
it was Edward who desired the female presence most. Guy just seemed to go
through the experience to please his patron. So Edward was surprised that Guy
actually seemed to be attracted to Anne. Yet he should not be, because