Read Online Desperate and Daring 01 - Desperate and Daring by Ella J. Quince - Free Book Online

where he could be the man she needed to marry, or she could be a stewards wife. She looked up at him. His eyes were examining her face tenderly. She brought a hand up to his cheek, stroking the line of his square jaw.
    “Kiss me, Fallon.”
    His eyes snapped to hers, and then he swooped down and stole her lips in a kiss that was vastly different from the night before. His large hands spanned her back, pulling her tightly against him. His lips were firm and demanding. All Heather could do was tip her head back and let him do as he wished. At the insistent pressure of his mouth, she opened hers and shivered as his tongue swept in triumphantly.
    She clung to him now, her nails digging into his coat as her mind scattered in all directions and her body took over. This was her first true kiss, her first taste of desire and dalliance. She should have been shocked into shame, but instead, she gloried in the way her heart tripped and skipped in excitement and her skin came alive. Suddenly, she could feel every part of herself, her toes curling in her slippers, the brush of her chemise against her now sensitive nipples.
    He pulled away and Heather took a much needed gasp of air. His face was very stern, and his chest heaved with breath as if he had just accomplished a great physical feat.
    “This is a horrible idea,” he said gravely.
    Heather nodded, not yet able to form words.
    “You must make a choice, Heather. I fear I can’t.”
    She looked up at him then, the joy singing in her veins fading. “A choice? I’ve never had a choice. This… this is something I’ve never felt before. I know I am missing something, I know what I am losing, but the duke is still my only choice. I may have nothing else, but I will have this moment. If I had a choice, Fallon, I would very much choose a man like you.”
    His eyes changed at that moment. They thundered with emotion and Heather couldn’t look away. “You would choose me?”
    Heather nodded and her heart beat painfully. She couldn’t believe what she was saying, but it was the truth. “I would, but you must see that I can’t.”
    “Yes,” he backed away from her.
    Heather wanted to reach out to him, but she couldn’t read him. Was he upset? Hurt? “I need you to understand that my family has endured so much already. I have to do this for my sisters and my mother.”
    “Because I am only a steward,” he said oddly.
    Heather frowned in confusion. She was panicking. The pleasant gallop of her heart before was now a painful staccato. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
    He seemed to be looking down, and yet not seeing anything at all, then he shook himself and his gaze refocused on her. “Would you allow me to woo you until the duke arrives?”
    “Woo me?” Heather said in astonishment.
    “Yes, it’s all that can happen between us. It’s all I can offer you.”
    “You want to woo me?” Heather couldn’t believe her ears.
    “I want far more than to merely woo you, but as you said, there is no other choice. For a brief moment, we can pretend that what we have between us is more than just a dream. For a little while, it can be real.”
    Heather wasn’t sure if it was her heart that stopped or time, but his words resonated to a deep part of her, the part that had made her dream of him, think of him, and crave him as she had no other. She suddenly had the urge to cry. She looked down at her hands as her fingers tangled together anxiously. “Wooing, I suppose that would be all right, but what happens after the duke arrives?”
    “We will cross that bridge when it comes.”
    They stood nervously apart, both yearning to touch, but afraid of that yearning.
    “We should return to the house,” Heather offered.
    Fallon nodded. “Tomorrow, I’m going to make a case with Lady Endervale and your mother that you will have to be excused in the festivities. I’ll make up something ridiculous that will fit in with the dukes rumored eccentricity. We shall spend the day