Read Online Captive Bride by Katharine Ashe - Free Book Online Page A

Beatrice Sinclaire , spinster, unappreciated companion to her wretched mother, human magnet, b.1799 –d.1822.
    For now she truly could die. Peter Cheriot had kissed her. She was a whole woman. Or at least she felt like one at the present. The sensation might not last. But for the time being, heaven seemed entirely hers.
    “I will—” he began again. He took a sharp breath. “Good night, Bea.” He turned and disappeared down the corridor.
    In the abrupt vacuum of his presence, Bea nearly fell over. Clutching the door latch, she gulped in breaths of air acrid with torch smoke. It smelled like summer flowers.
    He had kissed her.
    She didn’t know why he had, but for the moment, at least, she wouldn’t even think about that. She would simply allow herself to feel, remembering the sensation of his lips passing across hers so intimately, reliving the swirling delight in her body, and reveling in it all.
    He had kissed her. Finally.
    It had only taken seven years.
     
    What in the devil had he been thinking?
    Nothing. Not a damn blast thing. One moment he was watching the pink flush steal into Bea’s lovely cheeks, her eyes glimmering with excitement, and the next he was kissing her.
    In an instant he realized the mistake. At the gentle touch of her soft, full lips, his cock went hard as rock. If he hadn’t halted the kiss immediately—frankly, before it truly got started—he might not have been able to stop it at all. Four years of frustrated lust for a woman was no small thing to control.
    Tip fell back against his closed door and put his hands to his face, sucking in an enormous breath.
    Dear God, she felt good. And it hadn’t even been more than a tantalizing hint, the barest contact.
    He wanted more. He wanted to touch every inch of her, to caress the soft skin behind her knees, the palms of her hands, her breasts— her beautiful breasts —her tapered waist, and her sweet, tight womanhood until she begged for release. He wanted to strip her naked and take her in every way imaginable, in every way that would ensure her greatest pleasure and his own. He wanted to be deep inside her when she called out his name in ecstasy, her rich eyes fevered with need that only he could satisfy.
    He had never in his seven and twenty years halted a kiss after such a slight caress. Not even close.
    How had he let his discipline slip like that? So many times before he’d had the same opportunity with her, and he always stopped himself. He was a gentleman, for God’s sake, a man of cool, rational sense. If she wanted him, she would accept his offer of marriage. Until then, he didn’t have any business kissing her.
    She hadn’t shied away.
    She’d sighed .
    Tip shuddered, heat pounding in his body. He couldn’t bear it much longer. But nothing would quench his hunger except her soft, supple curves, her hands on him, her lips and tongue. It was far too long since he’d had a woman. He only wanted this one.
    Dear God, was he mad? What was he doing here in this remote castle trying to stave off his desire for the one woman he had ached for for years . He was imbecilic to have come, idiotic to remain, and even more foolish to not march right back to her bedchamber and show her in no uncertain terms how marriage to him could be quite enjoyable indeed.
    He groaned and shifted to relieve the pressure in his groin.
    He must be insane. He certainly wasn’t in his right mind tonight. Not since earlier in the parlor when she’d glowed with eagerness over that damn ghost.
    “That damn ghost,” he muttered. He peered around the dark chamber. An angle of moonlight slanted through a window, illuminating the space in a silver glow. No fire burned in the grate, of course, a consequence of Lady Bronwyn’s cowardly servants.
    “Blasted ghost. You don’t frighten me,” he mumbled, arranging wood in the hearth and searching about for a taper .
    “Yet she terrifies you,” a deep voice said over his shoulder.
    Tip froze, then stood. His gaze