Only With Your Love by Lisa Kleypas Read Free Book Online Page A

terrible pleasure invading her body. It betrayed everything she was, everything she held dear, and still she could not hold it back. His hand covered her breast completely, his thumb rubbing gently over her nipple until it contracted to a point. Shivering, she arched her back, her body responding wantonly to his caresses. Somehow her arms were around his neck and her fingers were tangled in his thick hair…Somehow his hands were soothing her aching breasts, his thumbs stroking over the hard peaks, and her hips were pressing harder against his thigh in response to the gentle rhythm he had begun.
    The whore peered at the outline of two writhing figures in the shadows, and she smiled knowingly. “Why, it’s nothin’ but one o’ the girls and some salty jack givin’ it a turn.” She ventured farther in the passageway, hand braced on her ample hip. “’Ey, me ’earty, care to join a merry crowd already half-seas over?”
    Griffin lifted his head, taking care to keep his face out of the light. “Begone with you,” he said roughly. There was a dangerous note of warning in his voice.
    Wisely the woman backed away to avoid the prospect of trouble. She motioned for her two companions to follow her. “Leave ’em to theirruttin’,” she said. “We got our own to do. You two jack-tars ever had a woman at th’ same time?”
    Eagerly the seamen followed her sashaying form down the corridor.
    Celia watched until they had disappeared. Her breath rushed out in uneven bursts, ruffling through the crisp black curls on Griffin’s chest. She could not look up at his face, not when she was suffused with humiliation. She was no better than the whore who had just passed by them. How could she have behaved in such a way? The feelings that had flamed inside her were unfamiliar and painfully confusing.
    She knew there was such a thing as lust, a desire that had nothing to do with love, but until now she had thought herself incapable of such a thing. She loved Philippe so much that she couldn’t bear the idea of life without him, and yet she had just been unfaithful to the ideals and the love they had shared. Her eyes stung sharply. It took all her strength to hold back her tears.
    Slowly Griffin’s knee withdrew from between hers, but his hand was still closed around her wrists. Neither of them moved until Celia forced herself to raise her chin. “Let me go,” she whispered, her hatred easy to read.
    His face was sheathed in darkness. She could see little but the glitter of his eyes. The silence deepened. He bent his head again.
    “No,” she whimpered, just before his mouth closed over hers. His muscular arms wrapped around her struggling body, one hand pushing her slim hips against the bulging ridge that strained against his breeches. Her lips were forced open by a devastating kiss, his tongue thrustingdeeply inside her. Rage exploded in her chest. She fought him viciously, using her nails, her elbows, her knees. But he muffled her screams with his lips and slid his hand over her bottom in an insolent caress. Celia groaned and shivered, her resistance crushed by his strength, her senses careening.
    He kissed her as Philippe never had, his mouth uncivilized, voluptuous, barbaric. The tip of his tongue slipped underneath her top lip, finding an excruciatingly sensitive nerve, teasing gently until she moaned in protest. He drew her trembling breath into his mouth, wet her inner cheeks with his tongue, traced the line of her teeth.
    When he broke off the kiss and eased her away from his aroused body, she was too stunned to move. Gasping for air, she leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes.
    His voice was mocking. “I’m intrigued, Madame Vallerand. You look and speak like a lady, but you don’t kiss like one.”
    She quivered with fury, striking out blindly, her fists beating on his chest. Griffin laughed and picked her up, slinging her over his shoulder. “Quiet, or I’ll knock your head against the