Read Online Lord of Regrets by Sabrina Darby - Free Book Online Page B

stunned and surprised, but he knew he’d said those words before. They’d been trapped in his heart these last five years. They’d repeated in his mind and his dreams.
    “You’ve never…” Then her lips, those ripe pink lips, closed shut and she narrowed her eyes. “I’m not entirely certain what or whom you love, Marcus, but it isn’t me. Lust, I’ll allow. And I’ll allow I feel it, too.” Triumph surged through him at those words. “But not love.”
    He shifted his weight, ready to slip his foot forward if she tried to close the door. But she stepped back again, opening the door wide.
    …
    She was inviting him in. Again. Despite her best intentions, he was striding past her into her house.
    I love you.
    The three words still ricocheted in her body. She was foolish. She was vulnerable.
    And she wanted to believe.
    Natasha tamped down the unbidden yearning, the girlish dreams that she had thought long since relegated to fantasy.
    Soul mates . He had suggested the idea to her so long ago, seduced her with it, and then she’d forced it away, derided herself for ever entertaining such a thought. Of course, she had been prime for such suggestion. Had she not felt that urgent rush of… something …a push forward from her heart to his? She had been so ready to think it grand, extraordinary, fated.
    Despite the derisive tenor of her thoughts, it was difficult to completely erase the glow of pleasure she felt at his declaration of love. Chiding herself for that insidious emotion was unsuccessful as well.
    “Leona is outside in the garden making snow angels.” She closed the door and turned to follow him into the sitting room. Only––
    He hadn’t moved very far and suddenly he was looming over her.
    She tilted her head back to look up at him. For a moment, the sensation of falling overwhelmed her. Then the back of her head touched the firm wooden door, and she quickly reached back to assure herself she was still standing, still upright. The pounding of her heart was as foolish as any gothic heroine’s.
    “I’ll willingly take whatever you give me, Tasha,” Marcus said, reaching out. His gloved hand was cool on her neck but as he moved closer, the heat of his body warmed her. “And then,” he was close now, too close, and she knew he would kiss her, “I’ll ask for more.”
    At the first touch of his lips, Natasha tasted honey, velvet, chocolate, silk, emeralds, and pearls, all the indulgent luxuries that had always come with his kisses. There was also his scent— his scent and an unfamiliar citrus blend. Yet even that fragrance, too, she was coming to associate with Marcus, with this Marcus, the man who was older, more handsome, more self-assured and relentless. The Marcus who claimed his daughter and claimed to love Natasha herself.
    She sighed against him and felt him take that release as surrender. She lost herself in the world between his hand and his mouth, his desire and his will, and it was full of hot, spring colors that had nothing to do with the blustery winter outside the door at her back. He tasted melting, spicy, and she wanted more. She pushed her hands against the wall and then let go, using the momentum to lean up into his kiss, to wrap her arms around him and press her hips forward and lift her leg just slightly so she could nestle his thigh between her legs to press against where she was hot and awake and yearning and––
    She quickly pushed away, but he didn’t let go, and she knew she had to move before her need clouded her mind again. She had been his mistress once. But that was ages ago, when she was young and foolish, when she was willing to lift her skirts and lose her morals all in the name of an ephemeral love.
    Now––now her daughter could walk in at any moment. Now she wanted something more than a jewel-strewn bed and a passion-clouded life.
    Marcus was asking for marriage.
    And Natasha was beginning to think that she might be shockingly amenable to the idea. A strange