Read The Smuggler's Captive Bride for Free Online Page B

to tell him so.
    His eyes grew brilliant and his nostrils flared like a great cat detecting the eminent collapse of its prey.
    The scent of the savage filled her nostrils, and she declared, “I don’t think I like you.”
    “I don’t want you to like me. I want no part of such a paltry emotion from you.” Her pantalettes loosened under his hands. He stripped them and her stockings from her in one efficient motion.
    Her own nudity left her gasping.
    As he stripped off his clothes, his nudity silenced her completely.
    In all her life she’d never seen a naked man.
    Now she knew why.
    If men like Hamilton walked the streets wearing nothing but a smile, women like her would have to join him in the most basic manner. The sight of him made her forget her embarrassment. Fascinated, she touched his chest. Broad, covered with coarse hair that crinkled and rolled, it undulated from the broad, smooth muscles above to the frequent ripple of his ribs. His abdomen rippled, too, strength implicit in the structure beneath the skin.
    How did a nobleman build such a body?
    She snatched her hand away.
    By moving barrels of brandy on moonless nights.
    He sighed in what sounded like disgust. “You think too much.” And he kissed her.
    The time for games was over. His intent was clear. He wanted her, wanted her wanting him, wanted her clinging, panting, ecstatic and mindless. He kissed her softly at first, barely lapping at her lips. Then his tongue sought hers while his hands wandered to her breasts, her stomach, and finally between her legs.
    This wasn’t like before when he touched her and her gown and petticoats remained between them. Now his fingers tugged at her curls, then intruded between the folds of flesh.
    Horrified, she pulled her mouth from his. “Stop that,” she hissed.
    He didn’t answer and he didn’t stop. He touched her delicately, using little dabs of rapture.
    The weight of her eyelids grew too great, and they half closed. “Please.”
    “Please what?”
    She couldn’t remember what, so she merely repeated it. “Please.”
    “Stop?”
    Her hesitation amazed her. “Yes!”
    “As you wish.”
    He obeyed her so easily, she should have been suspicious. Instead she breathed a sigh of relief — or was it disappointment? — as he took his hand away.
    Then he moved his body over hers and pressed his knee between her legs to separate them.
    That wasn’t what she planned, wasn’t what she wanted. It was too intimate, too sexual, too soon.
    She couldn’t believe this was happening to her. She couldn’t believe she was doing this. She dared not struggle, yet everything about it was alien.
    She tried to clamp her legs shut.
    He moved his knee up and spread them wider.
    The hard muscles of his thigh rocked against her, and she woke to an incredible fact. The subtle probe of his finger had aroused her, but she had feared to move. When he touched her so sensitively, it was as if he were the master and she the painting.
    But this broad thrust of his thigh encouraged her to find her own pleasure. She left delicacy behind and rode his leg, at first hesitantly, then with increasing assurance, and he encouraged her with precisely the right pressure.
    “That’s it,” he whispered. “Take what you want. Give all you’ve got.”
    Self-conscious, she bit off the whimpers before they could escape her throat.
    He didn’t like that, and opened her mouth with the thrust of his tongue. “Let me hear everything. I want to know what you feel.”
    How could he know what she felt, when even she didn’t know? She was bursting, ripe, wanting more yet not knowing what more she should desire. She moved ever more quickly, and at last the dampness he spoke of moistened his thigh.
    “There it is.” He sounded satisfied as he moved his thigh away.
    She used a word she’d never admitted to knowing. She wanted him back .
    “I’ll take care of it,” he promised, easing himself down onto her. “Hold onto me, and I’ll take care of