Seduced At Sunset by Julianne MacLean Read Free Book Online Page A

happy ending, at least
for the boy?”
    “I haven’t decided yet,” she replied, “for I have only
just begun.”
    “Then I will look forward to reading it when it is
finished.”

     

     
    As soon as Drake secured the boat to the jetty, he
shrugged back into his jacket and offered his arm to Lady Charlotte.
    He always felt revitalized after his early morning
exercise, but today was different from all the other days, for his body was
smoldering with a level of desire he had not felt in years.
    Surely, there was a simple explanation for it, he told
himself, for Lady Charlotte was a beautiful woman with soft full lips, hypnotic
eyes, and abundant curves in all the right places. Even the silky tone of her
voice made his body tremble, made him want to smother her words with his mouth
and devour her whole.
    But that was not the whole story. Discovering that she was
Victor Edwards—a successful novelist, but also a woman who knew a thing
or two about a boxer’s life, and somehow, miraculously understood a violent
man’s soul—seemed to heighten his attraction to her.
    For the first time he had revealed his past to a woman who
would likely become his lover. It was not conceit that led him to expect such
an affair to occur. Lady Charlotte had been more than candid with her words,
her actions, and her eyes. He saw the way she looked at him... how her gaze
raked admiringly over the length of his body, how her hands stroked over her
clothes whenever their eyes locked and held. There was a shared sexual desire
between them, that required consummation.
    In addition, this morning, something new had entered the
equation. He had believed initially that she was a bored member of the
aristocracy who wanted him for a few weeks of idle pleasure, to satisfy some
wicked fantasy about a savage man who would remain outside her social circle
and not taint her reputation with the roughness of his hands.
    But Lady Charlotte was not idle or bored. How could she
be, when her mind was occupied by the composition of lengthy tragic novels? He
had read her book. There was depth to her characters, but where did her
awareness of such people come from? How could this privileged woman write about
such struggle without knowing something of it herself? As he did.
    He was curious now. He wanted to peel back the layers and
open her up. In more ways than one.
    As they entered the coach and settled into their
seats—this time he sat beside her, not across from her—he watched
her with passionate interest and delicious anticipation.
    “That was most enjoyable Mr. Torrington,” she said,
folding her gloved hands upon her lap and looking up at him with tantalizing,
gleaming eyes.
    “Yes, it was.”
    As the coach moved forward up the rutted lane, his thigh
bumped hers and continued to rub against it. The press of her hip against his
own quickly flooded him with arousal, which made him resent the fact that he
must behave as a gentleman, for she was the daughter of a duke, and he wasn’t
entirely sure she knew what she had asked for. Until he knew for sure, he must
continue to obey the rules, at least for the moment. But damn, how he wanted to
forgo such social strictures and touch her now, in a most improper way.
    His heart pounded in his chest and thrust hot blood
through his veins like a violent force of nature. For a long moment, he
refrained from looking at her, though he could feel her eyes on his profile.
    “Are you nervous?” he asked, looking the other way so as
not to arouse his desires any further. At least not yet.
    “Should I be?” Her voice was both innocent and seductive.
It sent another surge of lust to his loins.
    At last, he turned to meet her gaze. “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    “Because we are alone, Lady Charlotte, and you must know
what I am thinking about. What I want.”
    “And what is that, Mr. Torrington?” she asked, as if she’d
rehearsed the words a thousand times.
    She knew damn well what it was. The flirtatious flash of
light