Shayla Black by Strictly Seduction Read Free Book Online Page A

purpose—”
    “ We are courting. Or do you have an answer to my proposal?”
    “ You gave me a week. I intend to consider this matter thoroughly first.”
    Or search futilely for a way out of his grasp. “Your choices are only two. You won’t find me nearly as...confining as your other option, I assure you.”
    “ Your assurances are of little comfort.” Her stormy eyes flashed. “If I alone would suffer in refusing you, be assured I would do so this instant.”
    Though Brock knew that, her words stabbed like a knife to the chest. Five years ago, she had thought him beneath her. Nothing had changed.
    “ I am not a man who likes to be gainsaid.”
    Fear and resistance flickered in her eyes. Yes, she knew he deserved his ruthless reputation. Whose story had she heard? That of the banker who had tried to steal from him and found himself trapped within Newgate’s walls for the effort? Or mayhap she had heard of the factory manager who had substituted substandard materials and kept the profit for himself, earning him a lifelong trip to Australia. No matter, he thought, smiling. She knew enough.
    “ Is refusing me in your best interest? In Aimee’s?”
    Maddie tensed, looking ready to scratch his eyes out. For a moment, he envied Aimee that kind of maternal love. His own mother had died bringing him into the world.
    “ You know nothing of my daughter’s best interest!”
    In truth, once they were wed, he would provide for Aimee. He had no intention of neglecting the child or sending her off to an austere boarding school. It was hardly Aimee’s fault that he hated her father.
    Brock stepped closer. Anxiety crossed Maddie’s face as he stopped within inches of her. Good. Disquieting her, keeping her off balance—all would play in his favor.
    “ That is one of your qualities I always admired, Maddie, that passion you were never afraid to show.”
    The passion he suspected had only grown. Before, she had possessed a girl’s ardor. Now, she surely had a woman’s needs. Though Sedgewick had surely shared Maddie’s bed before his death, Brock planned to kindle her desire into an inferno. He would bury himself so hot and so deep within her, fuck her both day and night. Soon, she would forget Sedgewick’s touch.
    “ I have no need for the kind of fleshy passion you hint at so improperly.”
    He watched Maddie swallow nervously with satisfaction. Then he inhaled. The scents of jasmine and vanilla lingered on her skin, rousing his slumbering senses. That perfume took him back five years, when he’d undressed her, held her, worked into her virginal body with more enthusiasm than finesse, his heart bursting with fierce need and hope for the future.
    Desire seized him. He retreated a fraction to draw in a steadying breath.
    “ Then I shall have to create such a need. Very soon.” He leaned forward to whisper in her ear, “You have the most delicious scent. I could breathe you in all night.”
    “ You will not, Mr. Taylor, ever.”
    She turned her back to him, presenting him with a small waist, slim shoulders, and a graceful neck made more tantalizing by honey-cream skin. Gritting his teeth against her rebuff, Brock cursed his urge to press his lips against the slender column of her neck, to seduce her until she was naked, gasping, sinking her pretty little nails into his back as he sank his cock into her lush body over and over.
    He willed restraint and patience. Life and business had taught him never to show his enemies any weakness. It would not do for Lady Madeline Sedgewick to know how dangerously deep his desire for her ran.
    #
    An hour later, Maddie sat within Brock’s theater box, clutching a handkerchief in her gloved hands, gawking at the opulence. He had wonderful seats. Expensive ones. Her dress was all the finest, as his coach had been. Even now, attendants buzzed about them, ridiculously eager to please. Everything screamed that Brock had amassed a huge fortune. Seeing the evidence of that made her