Read Online Cheryl Holt by More Than Seduction - Free Book Online Page B

spoon across the china inordinately loud. Her temper escalated until she was fuming. Gulping down the last of her wine, she glaredover, ready to give him what-for, only to discover that he’d fallen asleep.
    Wasn’t that just like a man! She was eager to quarrel, and he was dozing! Exasperated, she shook her head. Perhaps she wasn’t destined to have a smooth, functioning relationship with any male of her acquaintance.
    Striding over to him, she gripped him by the shoulder, and he lurched awake.
    “I’ll be going now,” he told her, flushing with embarrassment.
    “You’re exhausted. Take a nap on my bed.”
    “Are you mad?”
    “I won’t hear otherwise.”
    As he’d spent the night on the floor, he probably hadn’t had a wink of sleep, then he’d labored all day to repair the carriage. The stubborn lummox! She positioned herself in front of the door, so that he would have to pick her up to exit.
    “Eleanor!” he groused.
    “I won’t let you refuse.”
    Her suggestion was outrageous, scandalous in the extreme, and she couldn’t explain what was driving her.
    “Lie down!” she decreed.
    He studied her, the bed, her, the bed, gaping at it so longingly, that she smiled.
    “Maybe for a few minutes,” he relented. “But you can’t tell anyone.”
    “As if I would.”
    Woozy and muddled, he rose and stumbled over, pitched onto the mattress face-first, and in an instant, he was slumbering.
    She seated herself at the table and adjusted her chair so she could watch him. Nibbling at the leftovers, she appraised his thick, reddish hair, his broad shoulders, narrow waist, muscular thighs, making the languid journey over and over.
    Her husband, Harold, was the sole man with whom she’dbeen physically familiar, and compared to him, Charles was so hard, so robust. She speculated as to the body hidden by the clothes. What would he look like naked? How would his torso vary from Harold’s?
    When she noticed that her wicked mind was conjecturing as to the size and shape of his privy parts, she was stunned. She was relishing the clandestine episode much more than she ought.
    Careful not to disturb him, she put the trays in the hall so the maid could remove them without knocking. Dusk came and went, the sun sinking on the horizon, the yard and taproom quieting. She drank a glass of wine, then another, and another, until she was quite giddy.
    Still, he didn’t stir, and she was growing tired herself. The tasty supper, coupled with the excess of spirits, had her drowsy. She considered nudging him, advising him to leave, but she didn’t have the heart.
    Why not just lie down with him?
    The query rang out, and was so fiendish and so diabolical, that the devil, himself, must have been perched on her shoulder and nagging her to transgress. Before she knew what she was about, she was tiptoeing over, and she climbed onto the mattress, stretching out, with him on one side of her, and the wall on the other.
    When she’d been in the bed by herself, she’d deemed it adequate and plenty large, but with him in it, too, there wasn’t enough space. He simply took up more than his share.
    Scooting around, she tried to get comfortable, to relax, when he shifted, his arm resting across her waist. She stiffened, surprised and puzzled over what to do. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might touch her.
    Or had it?
Had that been her plan? Was she attracted to him? Had the multiple goblets of wine lowered her inhibitions so that her true sentiments were bubbling to the fore?
    After the groping and pawing she’d endured from herhusband, she’d sworn she’d never submit to a man’s urges again. Yet, she was so lonely! So starved for human contact.
    Charles dragged her closer, so that her breasts were crushed to him. Their proximity had a strange, exhilarating effect on her anatomy. Her pulse pounded, her skin prickled, her nipples tightened into painful buds.
    “Ah, my darlin’ Meg,” he murmured, “you feel so good.”
    “Meg!”