Scottish Brides by Christina Dodd Read Free Book Online Page B

she held him there and closed her eyes, muffling little whimpers against the back of her hand, riding passion as if she’d been born to do so—or as if he’d been born to teach her.
    Gradually, the spasm retreated. Laying his head against her chest, he murmured, “You’re glorious, lass.” He stared up at her as if he exulted in the spectacle of her flushed face and trembling lips. “I want to be inside you; I want to see you look like that every day.”
    She didn’t know much right now, but she knew enough to deny him. “No,” she whispered.
    â€œI could make you feel like that whenever you wanted. All the time.”
    All the time? How did he think she would live through that? “No,” she said a little more strongly.
    His lips, soft, wide, and generous, eased into the smile that told her he knew what she was thinking. “We might die of it, lass, but what a way to go.” Standing, he smoothed a kiss across her forehead. “And next time you perch on a table, my love, you’ll remember me. Won’t you?”

Seven
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    With both hands on her waist, Hadden lifted Andra down. With one hand, he steadied her as she tried to hold her gown up, keep her balance, and channel strength into her shaky knees.
    And her drawers and petticoats dropped around her ankles. She stared at them stupidly. How had that happened?
    â€œThat gown’ll do you little good, all unfastened as it is.” He pried the neckline out from between her fingers and let it fall. Holding her hands away, he spread them wide. “You look like a martyr in one of the old paintings. Are you prepared to be a martyr, darling?” His gaze dropped to her figure, barely concealed by a drooping chemise, by silk stockings and flower-bedecked garters. “For me?”
    He was completely clothed and she was almost naked. He had brought her to ecstasy twice, and he still maintained control. Yet he stared, color sweeping up into his face, then ebbing away, stared so hard she could almost feel the heat of his gaze on the nipple that peeked through her chemise, on the swathe of bare thigh above her stockings. Oh, yes, he maintained mastery, but one little taunt, one glance of encouragement would bring him on her.
    She almost did it.
    But inviting him to take her meant more than just intercourse, and in some dim, still-functioning part of her mind, she knew it. She could do as her body urged and as he so obviously desired, and join their bodies in a celebration of the lust that scrambled her defenses whenever he was near. But if she invited him, she was inviting more than just lust. She would be saying “yes” to everything he wanted—marriage, children, a life spent growing closer until somehow, some way, sorrow ripped them apart.
    No. She shuddered. She couldn’t do it.
    He saw the refusal to give in to what was between them, for his jaw tightened and in his eyes burned a blue, wrathful flame. He wanted more than she had to give, and for one moment she thought he would turn away.
    Then he blinked, and his animosity was wiped away. He smiled, and tentatively she smiled back. He nodded, and she nodded back. It was, as she saw it, a tacit agreement that they could lust without pledge. Thank God, he had decided to be reasonable.
    As the tension drained from her, she wobbled, and he interpreted that with deliberate inaccuracy. “You can’t walk, poor thing.” He picked her up, out of the puddle of clothing at her feet, and carried her across the room. As he stepped into the path of the setting sun, it bathed them in flaxen light. Then, as he continued across the chamber, sullen shadow caught them. Darkness would arrive soon, darkness with all its sorrows and its needs.
    Yes, she needed him tonight. Only tonight.
    His starched shirtfront and waistcoat prickled her bare skin, but she put her hands around his neck and hoped he read that as willingness, but not