Read Online Malia Martin by Prideand Prudence - Free Book Online

surprised as she felt.
    “Sorry,” he said, his voice sounding a bit hoarse.
    He looked very much like a schoolboy caught stealing a tart, and Pru laughed nervously as she straightened and put her entwined hands back in her lap. She glanced down at James, hoping that he had closed his eyes again, but those gray orbs were staring at her, into her.
    Pru tried to look away as nonchalantly as possible. The attraction between them had become almost palpable in the last few moments. It was as if the very air between them trembled and waved like the flame of a candle. It was magnetic, hypnotic and, at the same time, thrilling and very, very hot.
    “I should get a room at Harker’s Inn,” he said suddenly.
    “Of course you should not. Whyever would you need to do such a thing?”
    He said nothing, just stared at her, his eyes dark, nearly black, really. Pru glanced nervously at her lap, smoothing away a nonexistent wrinkle.
    And then his hand was at the back of her head, pulling her toward him. Knocked off-balance, Pru fell against the hard planes of James’s chest. He locked his arms about her and kissed her.
    The candle flame Pru had thought of earlier turned into a raging inferno within seconds, and with a funny-sounding moan, Pru closed her eyes and just gave in to this new experience.
    It was truly lovely, and so much more exciting than the dry kiss she had pressed to his sleeping lips.
    Captain James tasted of darkly steeped tea, and his mouth was incredibly soft against her own. And then his tongue swept out, tracing the seal of her lips. She opened on a shocked intake of breath, and he entered her.
    Her dearest husband had never kissed her thus. Even the small kiss he had pressed to her mouth after lovemaking had always seemed rather chaste. Everything from those moments with her husband had always left Pru feeling like she had missed out on something important.
    But now, suddenly, with this man, kissing had become Pru’s favorite activity in the world. Tentatively, Prudence touched her own tongue to James’s as she placed one of her hands against his thinly covered chest. She allowed herself to seek out that small tuft of hair at his neck and twine her fingers in it.
    “Mmm,” she heard herself moan.
    Prudence pressed her upper body against James, enjoying the feeling of her softness against his strong chest. Pru had a sudden consuming need to strip away James’s nightshirt and see him. She moved back slightly, and his arms unlocked from around her. She felt him grip her shoulders and knew that he was going to push her away.
    Oh, she did not want to be pushed away.
    She sighed as their mouths parted and looked ruefully into James’s beautiful eyes. “That was so very nice,” she said on a sigh.
    James just groaned. “No it was not, Lady Farnsworth. That was carnal and wrong. And that is why I must go stay at Harker’s Inn.”
    She ignored the last part of his statement, curling her fingers into his nightshirt. “Carnal, yes, but wrong?” she asked. “How can something so wonderful be wrong?”
    “You are too truthful for your own good, Lady Farnsworth.”
    She pushed away from the delectable Captain James Ashley and laughed deeply.
    When she stopped, James was looking at her darkly. “How can a widow be so innocent?”
    “Oh, Captain Ashley, I am far from innocent.”
    “But you cannot see attraction for what it is. You cannot see what folly it would be to allow ourselves to continue on in such proximity.”
    Pru’s amusement fled. Oh yes, she could see. More than James would ever understand, she could see. “We are adults, Captain Ashley. Surely we can control ourselves.” Even as she said the words, Pru could not stop from staring at James’s wet lips.
    “Or perhaps,” she said, feeling like someone had put her in a trance, “we should just act on the attraction? Put it behind us, so to speak?” She looked up into his eyes, to see that he stared at her as if at a changeling.
    “Truly, Lady