The Perfect Poison by Amanda Quick Read Free Book Online Page B

Jones. Nevertheless, she knew she ought to have been shocked to her very core by such a breach of etiquette.
    Stolen kisses were the province of cads who took advantage of innocent young ladies and daring lovers who managed to slip away from overheated ballrooms into the shadows of night-darkened gardens. Among the respectably married set, such kisses were the signature of illicit liaisons.
    There was a word for a woman who allowed a gentleman to take such outrageous liberties: loose.
    Ah, but she had been called so much worse, she thought.
    In any event, this was no clandestine moment of passion such as might be enjoyed by two people in love. It was merely a flash of uncharacteristic exuberance from a man who, she suspected, rarely allowed himself to indulge in strong passions.
    The kiss should have ended as suddenly as it had begun, leaving little more than a momentary awkwardness between them. Instead, like lead transmuted into gold in an alchemist’s crucible, the embrace went from startling to searing in a disorienting instant.
    Caleb’s hands tightened abruptly on her arms. He pulled her closer and deepened the kiss. His mouth was now warm and heavy on hers, intoxicating. It was as though he offered her an irresistible elixir laced with dark and dangerous promises.
    A frisson of startling clarity shivered through her. A door opened somewhere, providing a glimpse into a fabulous garden filled with exotic, impossibly vibrant plants, flowers and herbs that, until now, had existed only in her dreams. It was a world of thriving energy and life, a place of mystery and enchantment.
    Her initial astonishment evaporated, replaced by a wave of deliciously disturbing heat. The thrilling warmth sweeping through her was not the only new sensation in the atmosphere. All her senses, the psychical as well as the physical, suddenly blazed across the spectrum. She experienced an electrifying awareness that was focused entirely on Caleb Jones.
    He muttered something she could not understand; words that surely belonged to the night; words that were far too arousing ever to be spoken in daylight. His breathing roughened. Another rush of heady excitement snapped through her when he urged her lips apart with his own. Then his hands were moving, sliding around her so that he could pin her against the length of his hard frame.
    She was trembling now, not with fear but with anticipation. The magical garden beckoned, filled with wild green life that gave off a marvelously seductive energy. She wrapped her arms around Caleb’s neck and allowed herself to sink deeper into the embrace and into the dangerous currents that whirled around them.
    So this is passion, she thought. Oh, my goodness. I had no idea.
    Caleb released her with such jolting force that she reeled back a step.
    “Damnation.” He looked at her in stark disbelief. If he had been in the grip of desire a moment ago, one would never know it now. His iron control closed around him like the bars of a prison cell. “Forgive me, Miss Bromley. I do not know what came over me.”
    It took her a few seconds to find her tongue.
    “Think nothing of it,” she finally managed in what she hoped was an airy, woman-of-the-world manner. “I realize that you intended no insult. You were clearly stricken with professional enthusiasm.”
    There was a short pause. He did not take his eyes off her.
    “Professional enthusiasm?” he repeated in an oddly neutral tone of voice.
    It dawned on her that her eyeglasses were askew. She concentrated hard on adjusting them. “I quite understand, of course.”
    “You do?” He did not sound pleased.
    “Yes, indeed. That sort of thing has happened to me on more than one occasion.”
    “It that so?” He looked fascinated now.
    “It affects the nerves, you know.”
    “What affects the nerves?”
    She cleared her throat. “A sudden onslaught of professional enthusiasm. Why, it can even overcome a man of your obvious powers of self-mastery.” She went