Read Lisbon: Richard and Rose, Book 8 for Free Online Page B

you.” He took my hand, stroking his thumb across my palm in a well-remembered gesture. “It’s still me, sweetheart.” His voice softened, gained that rough edge I loved. “I can’t look at you without wanting you. Touching you is almost impossible because I want to do this—” He dragged me close. His arms locked around me, crushing my breasts against his chest, and his mouth collided with mine, needy and hungry. I welcomed him with everything I could.
    Starved, I lifted one hand and pushed it under his wig, which fell to the floor with a thump. I threaded my fingers through his short, fair curls. Sleek to the touch, softer than the finest Chinese silk. He tilted his face to one side, taking my lips in a clearer, more complete melding.
    I moaned and he responded, not breaking the kiss as he hummed. My tears dried from his body and the heat he was generating in mine. His erection rose hard between us, pressing insistently against my belly, and because I had undressed, I felt every ridge, right to the cap at the head. Oh God, I’d missed that. Those lover’s touches, absent these last three months and more. It might as well have been three years, thirty years. A desert of longing.
    His hands, up to now in hard, knuckled fists against me as if he still tried to resist, opened and spread over my back, encompassing all of my being. During our history together we had the truth that our bodies spoke to each other, never failing us in the tide of desire and togetherness. From our first kiss in the coach house in Yorkshire, we’d fitted like this. That kiss had persuaded my body that I belonged to no other, that I could give myself to nobody but him.
    I opened my mouth, and his tongue thrust in, firm and possessive. I tasted him in return, boldly played with him, tongue against tongue, the sensitive buds tasting. He sucked at me as if he’d thought of nothing else, wanted nothing else, needed me to continue his existence.
    When his mouth left mine, it was so he could kiss down my throat and find the sensitive hollow at the base. He teased me there, his grip loosening so he could stroke and then cup one breast through the fabric of my shift. Shivers racked me, and I gasped his name, pushing my body into his, desperate to feel his skin against mine once more. His tongue caressed and demanded, and I imagined all my nerves standing on end and screaming for his touch.
    Emboldened, I palmed his balls, felt his hard, hot length. Something inside me seemed to loosen, just as he’d loosened my stays for me, and I gave myself up to him.
    That was when he gasped, “No!” and thrust me away.
    I took a step back, my eyes wide. I’d tugged at his shirt, which now flopped loosely under his waistcoat and over his breeches.
    His mouth was slightly open, his breath coming in short gasps. “Now you see,” he said. “ Now you understand.”
    He turned and left the room, and a moment later I heard the slam of his stateroom door. I stared at the door linking our bedrooms. Other doors, other places, we’d never locked them, but this one we’d never unlocked.
    I didn’t understand at all. Not one bit.

Chapter Four
    Considering the state of affairs on London’s docks, this wasn’t the most salubrious part of the city, either. I didn’t hold much hope for our landing point, but even that appeared more respectable than Rotherhithe and the Isle of Dogs. The same type of rough man hung around, but they seemed not to have the air of menace I’d sensed at home. Or maybe my imagination gave the inhabitants of a foreign town a romantic glamour. Perhaps a Portuguese would give a similar connotation to our dockers. He wouldn’t be entirely wrong.
    The royal palace dominated the part of the quay that we approached. Gracious buildings with mansard roofs in the French style flanked a large, regular structure, framing a huge courtyard. I enjoyed the sight, with the autumn sun gilding the rooftops, and people coming and going about court