The Bride Price by Anne Mallory Read Free Book Online Page B

him smile against her throat. Skilled fingers investigated beneath her knees, her stockings, her garters, then moved farther up.
    “I wonder what other things you are hiding?” he whispered into her ear. Fingertips curled around the heat at her base, as he successfully navigated the cloth of her drawers.
    Overwhelming sensation filled her as she arched back against him. The paper fell from her hand; the chalk slipped from her grip. She grippedhis thigh, and a finger curved into her, causing her to arch further, her breast pushing into his hand, which had slipped inside her bodice to palm her, his other thumb rubbing a spot nestled between her legs.
    A dam broke that had too long been controlled. Lingering anger with the earl mixed with the earlier frustration at the man devouring her, and swirled with the irritation over the hand fate had dealt Sarah. Here was someone allowing her to release those emotions instead of swallowing them like a lump of coal. All the past years’ turmoil—keeping herself in line and isolated—pushed out.
    She could be anyone at the moment. Do anything. Here was someone she’d likely never see again. She was in fact not seeing him anyway, since he was sitting behind her, a phantom lover with skilled hands and a questing mouth who was mapping the planes of her neck more thoroughly than she’d mapped the estate grounds.
    A second finger requested entry, and some semblance of sense returned at the thought that she’d never felt this vulnerable or out of control with Patrick. He’d never played her body with this sort of undeniable skill.
    Her knees automatically pushed together. “I—”
    He nipped her neck, and his palm hooked under her knee, pulling it over his thigh, opening her completely. Only this time, when she arched back, he easily slipped another finger in with the first, his thumb playing her like a mandolin player plucking at strings.
    The sensations were vicious, delicious, and all-encompassing, reality and fantasy mingling. She moved rhythmically against his hand and violently arched back against him, whimpering for release.
    He whispered words of encouragement as his fingers moved within her. Sharp waves of desire built into a crescendo for one, two, three beats of her heart before she convulsed wildly around his fingers, straining into him. He held her arched against him for a long minute, breathing heavily himself, before removing his hand and lowering her on the bench, one of her legs still draped over his lap, the other dangling uselessly on the grass.
    He smoothed his hands down her flesh, down her dress, petting and soothing her as she gave a small shudder every few seconds, her breathing still heavy. His face was shuttered as if nothing monumental had occurred. He nonchalantly bent over her and lifted something from the ground. Her throat closed as she heard the crinkle of paper. She was in no position to stop him from destroying the sketch while lying on her back, her dress splayed about her, her body boneless. Betrayal and resignation washed through her as she watched him grip the paper’s edge. She closed her eyes as his fingers moved away, waiting for the first rip, the first crumple.
    The steady sound of chalk pulling along paper popped her eyes open. “No, please—” She struggled upward, thinking she could stop him from ruining the sketch.
    One hand touched her breastbone and pushedher back down, not unkindly. He cocked a brow, turning his attention back to her prized work. She closed her eyes again, listening to the scritches and swipes. Trying to keep her overwrought emotions in a tight grip.
    He shifted over her, a hand wrapped around her nape, and pulled her to meet warm lips in a drugging caress. Her eyes opened as his lips left hers, and he lowered her head gently back to the bench. A slow smile pulled across his lips, and a piece of paper settled on her chest.
    “Until the next time, dear Miss Sculler,” he said in his deep, smooth voice. “Consider