Some Like It Wicked by Teresa Medeiros Read Free Book Online Page B

why I should suffer the indignities of marriage without being allowed to enjoy any of the benefits.”
    “S-s-such as?” she stammered.
    His smile was as tender and benevolent as a priest’s. “You.”
    She swallowed audibly. “Me? You want to enjoy me ?”
    “Surely you must have mirrors at your uncle’s house. It can’t have escaped your notice that you’ve bloomed into quite the beauty.” He lifted a hand to her cheek much as he had in the barn on that long-ago summer day. “If I’m going to play the role of devoted husband to you, then I deserve a more substantial reward than just your dowry.” He drew the pad of his thumb across the plush velvet of her bottom lip. At her delicate shiver, a husky note crept into his voice. “I want you. In my bed. Performing whatever wifely duties I require of you.”
    Simon had thought to cast his seductive spell over Catriona, but he was the one mesmerized by the misty glow in her eyes, the tantalizing way her lips parted ever so slightly beneath the coaxing pressure of his thumb. Her skin still felt like down beneath his fingertips. It was a damn shame he would never find out if she was as soft all over.
    It was almost as if they were back in that barn with the smell of fresh-cut hay tickling their noses and dust motes dancing a sparkling minuet around them. Almost as if he were a much younger man full of promise and secret dreams for the future that only she could see. Before he realized it, he found himself leaning forward, lowering his head toward hers, savoring the fragrant warmth of her sigh against his lips…
    Swearing softly beneath his breath, he abruptly straightened. His trousers had grown uncomfortably snug and his traitorous body was urging him to draw her down on the settee and consummate a mock marriage to which he had no intention of agreeing.
    Folding his arms over his chest, he gazed sternly down at her. “Those are my terms, Miss Kincaid. Take them or leave them.”
    Catriona knew she would have to be mad to agree to his shocking terms. She had proposed a brief, sterile marriage of convenience. He had countered by demanding to defile her tender young body in whatever way was guaranteed to bring him the most pleasure and satisfy his debauched appetites . For her brother’s sake, she might be able to recover from being married to Simon. But sharing his bed—even for a season—could very well haunt both her body and her heart to the end of her days.
    She tilted her head to study him. He wore the mask of leering villain with disturbing ease, but she couldn’t afford to forget that he was also a skilled gamester.
    If he was bluffing, she supposed there was only one way to find out.
    As the mist faded from Catriona’s eyes, leaving them as sharp as flints, Simon set his jaw, bracing it for the well-deserved clout he knew was coming.
    “Very well, Mr. Wescott,” she said firmly. “I shall take your terms. And you.”
    Simon’s jaw dropped in astonishment.
    All he could do was stand there as she bustled back over to the stool and began to draw on her gloves as if she hadn’t just bartered away her precious innocence to a complete stranger. “It may take me a day or two to arrange for your release. I’ll send you a full set of instructions as soon as I’m able. I believe you’re familiar with the way to my uncle’s estate just outside of the city. I’m hoping we can be on our way to Gretna Green for our wedding as early as Monday morning.”
    As Simon watched her knot the ribbons of her bonnet into a jaunty little bow, it took him several ragged breaths to identify the unfamiliar emotion coursing through him as anger. Simon Wescott didn’t get angry. He got drunk. He got bitingly sarcastic. And occasionally, he got even. But he never got angry. And in truth, he wasn’t angry now.

    He was bloody well furious.
    He hadn’t been so thoroughly duped since he’d caught Philo Wilcox at the faro table with an entire deck of aces tucked up his