Seduced by the Beast by Jaide Fox Read Free Book Online Page B

You’ve had as much of me as I am
willing to give.”  More than I was willing, she thought.
                She clutched the
edges of her neckline together and held one hand up as warning to come no
closer.  He stopped, his chest inches from her fingertips, near enough she
could feel the heat from his body.
                His eyes
narrowed.  “Do not make idle promises you cannot keep, my lady.  Think you I
failed to notice your response to my touch?  You may lie with your lips, but
your body betrays you.”  He indicated her death grip on her clothing.  “Think
you I will rip your gown away?”
                Swan straightened
but did not relax her hold.  “I would not be surprised if you did.  You’ve
already demonstrated a certain lack of control.”
                His brows drew
down in his anger.  “I don’t make a habit of ravishing women.”
                “You’ve done so. 
Twice.  Today and the night before.”
                He chuckled and
rubbed a thumb along the stubble lining his jaw.  “So you remember that time as
well?”  His voice dropped by a finite degree.  “Do you remember ...
everything?  How you begged for more?”
                Swan blushed. 
“You’re lying.”  The dream she’d awakened to, urging him on, had she really
done that?  The fever had been brought on by magic.  There was no telling what
she could have done.
                “I would not lie
of such a thing, not a woman’s sweet entreaty for pleasure.”
                The
suggestiveness of his voice caused heat to flare along her nerves.  Swan
swallowed, her throat gone dry.  His words evoked an erotic image in her mind,
of lips and teeth, sucking, nipping, driving her to the edge.  In all truth,
she could not remember all he had done, nor how much she had encouraged him. 
Had she truly begged for his caress?
                He’d held back
before.  She was certain of that.  Some shred of honor had restrained him.  It
was not until she’d tempted him that he’d broken control.  She would never
allow that to happen again—tempting the beast, he’d called it.
                “Would you like
me to refresh your memory?”  He moved forward until her palm was pressed flat
against the hard plane of his chest.  “I healed you with the touch of my hand.”
                Slowly, holding
her gaze with his own, he stroked a finger up her arm, igniting a riot of
sensation to rivet through her nerves.  A strange weakness pervaded her senses,
making her knees feel like jelly.
                Swan shook her
head vigorously.  “Never touch me that way again.  I would rather die.”
                “Are you so
certain?”  He continued his slow, lingering stroke, drawing it across her
collarbone.  “I think your will wavers....”
                “Please do not
begin this,” she whispered with a shudder.
                Something in her
eyes halted Raphael’s advance as her words could not.  “You are afraid.” 
                Frowning, he
withdrew his hand from her.   She thought he would say something more, but
after studying her for several long moments, he turned away.  “Very well.  We
have too little time, in any case, to properly pursue the matter.  For the
moment, it would behoove you to explain the circumstances surrounding your
arrival in Shadowmere.  Come, I have gathered food for you.  Explain to me as
you eat.”  He gestured toward a low standing table near the room’s entrance
that she had not noticed before.
                Swan regarded him
warily, not certain she trusted the reprieve.  Had he hated bedding a human as
much as she did a beastman?  Their species were too different to coexist.  It
was inevitable that they would hate one another.  The thought sickened