Read Online MM03 - Saturday Mornings by Peggy Webb - Free Book Online Page A

rubbed and talked, keeping his voice low and singsong, like music.
    “He was a mean old cuss. Always looking over the fence and threatening to tell on us. Of course, Jo Beth and I deserved to be told on. We were always getting into mischief.”
    Margaret Leigh slumped against him, letting her head loll on his shoulder.
    “She's married now, married to a doctor in San Francisco. Colter Gray Wolf. He's Apache, a terrific athlete, and a fine horseman. We don't see them much. They'll come, though, after the babies are born. She's pregnant. Twins, the doctor says. They're trying to catch up with Rick and his wife, Martha Ann. They have two sets of triplets, three boys and three girls.”
    Margaret Leigh burrowed closer to him, circling her arm over his chest. He held her tighter. “Any day now I'll be an uncle again. Always an uncle, never a father.”
    Margaret Leigh stirred. Slowly she sat up. Her eyes were bright and her face was flushed.
    “I’ll make you a father.”
    “What?”
    “I said, I'll make you a father. I'll have your baby.”
    “Good Lord! What in the devil are you talking about?”
    Her lips trembled. “You don't want me?”
    He studied her through narrowed eyes. Something was going on. And he was going to find out.
    “What are we talking about here? Marriage or sex?”
    “Sex.”
    He didn't blink an eye. He sat on the sofa pretending that the prim Miss Margaret Leigh Jones talked about sex every morning before breakfast and three times a day thereafter.
    “You want to make love?” She didn't move. “Is that why you came out here, Margaret Leigh? To make love with me?”
    She took a deep breath. “It's not love I want to make. It's lust.” She leaned closer. “Say you want me, Andrew.”
    “I want you.”
    “Then take me.”
    “Do you know what you're asking?”
    “I'm not asking for the moon, just a little old-fashioned sin.”
    “Loving is not a sin.”
    “The way I plan to do it, it is.”
    She looped one arm around his neck and drew his head down to hers. Her lips were hot on his, burning, seeking, eager. Some sane part of his mind told him to pull away. Alarm bells sounded throughout his system. But with Margaret Leigh's mouth on his, he couldn't think rationally.
    She was inexperienced. He could tell that. But she was willing to learn. No. More than willing. Desperate.
    He fitted Margaret Leigh against him, kissing her deep and long and hard, doing what he'd wanted to do since the night she'd gone dancing in her blue taffeta dress. She was limp and pliant in his arms—too limp, too pliant.
    He pressed his hands tightly against her back, and he could feel the slight tremors that ran through her. Gentling her with his hands, his mouth, he sought to comfort with touch, to heal with kisses.
    He had no intention of taking her into his bedroom. Not tonight. Maybe not ever. Not that she wasn't desirable. Not that he didn't want her. But he had a certain code of honor he lived by, tarnished though it might be. When he was with a woman, he did it out of love, not lust.
    That didn't mean he was altar bound with every woman he took to his bed. But he did feel a certain kind of love, a compelling need.
    Margaret Leigh clung to him, her mouth open and receptive. She was sweet, sweeter than he'd imagined. With the smell of roses and lilacs in her hair and the taste of honey in her mouth, she was a tempting morsel. He felt himself drifting toward the edge of no return.
    He broke contact and lifted his head. Her face was wet with tears.
    “You're crying.” He touched her cheek gently, as if too much handling would shatter her.
    She snuffled and tried to smile. “I don't care. Kiss me.”
    He brushed his lips across her cheek.
    “Not like that.” She grabbed his upper arms, her fingernails biting into his flesh.
    His gaze swung from her face to her hands.
    “Good Lord. You're bleeding.”
    He pried one of her hands loose and held it, examining her knuckles. The skin was scratched and torn, bloody