Read Online Once Upon a Winter's Eve: A Spindle Cove Novella by Tessa Dare - Free Book Online Page A

so much pleasure to be shared.”
    He slid his hand between her legs.
    Oh. Oh, so good.
    Her nipples drew to tight points as he stroked her there. She twisted a little, letting the sensitive tips chafe against the restrictive boundary of her corset. He was teasing her, and she teased herself. Making the ache so sweet, so good. Making everything worse.
    “Yes,” he moaned, pushing aside the folds of her drawers. “This time, I’ll do right by you.”
    His words gave her the jolt of reality she needed. He’d do right by her, he said. How, precisely? By using her body, then leaving in the morning?
    “Stop.” She clamped her thighs together, trapping his fingers. “Stop.”
    He kept right on kissing her cleavage. “Darling, I promise, this time I’ll make it good. Better than good. We can make bliss, between us. Greater joy than you’ve ever dreamed.”
    He stretched his trapped fingers, striving to reach her intimate flesh.
    She tightened the vise of her thighs. “Truly. Do you truly believe you can stumble in here tonight, rave nonsense in an obscure language, drug my protector, and—despite the wrong you did me last time—convince me to lie back and lift my skirts for you? Here on the floor, in the center of a ballroom? Do you really think I’m that foolish?”
    “Well, I…”
    She sniffed. “Of course you think I’m that foolish. Why wouldn’t you? After all, I am the same girl who followed you up to your bedchamber and surrendered her virtue whilst our parents played cards downstairs—with no offer of marriage on the counterpane, much less declarations of tender love. It shouldn’t be any great trick to seduce me tonight. Is that what you’re thinking?”
    He shook his head. “No. No, I—”
    “I’m a fool.” Her voice broke. “Too easily dazzled to resist. Too dimwitted to pause a moment and consider the consequences. Too stupid to know what an orgasm is. ‘Oh, Violet,’” she mimicked. “‘Let me show you how good it can be.’ Well, allow me to show you something, Christian.”
    She raised the pistol and pressed the barrel to his temple.
    He cringed. “Violet, for the love of God.”
    “Remove your hand. Now.” She relaxed her thigh muscles just enough that he could slide his hand free.
    He wisely complied.
    “You’re going to listen to me for a minute.” She drew a deep breath, inching backward on the waxed parquet until a yard or so separated them. With steady hands, she kept the pistol aimed at his chest. “I adored you. All my life, I adored you. I asked nothing of you. No promises, no courtship. I surrendered my virtue. I gave you my trust. And you left me with a note .”
    His mouth twisted in an expression of regret. He pushed a hand through his hair. “I’m so very—”
    “Twenty-six words!” she shot back, in the loudest whisper she could manage. “I gave you my virginity, and you left me twenty-six scribbled words.”
    “I thought it would be easier for you that way. So you could hate me and forget.”
    “I did hate you. I hated you for making me feel cheap and foolish. I hated you for making me feel so ashamed, and distanced from my own family. And I hated myself for allowing it all to happen. But forget? How could I ever forget?” She blinked back tears. “You broke my heart into twenty-six pieces that day. But do you know something, Christian? Over the past several months here in Spindle Cove, I’ve stitched those pieces back together.”
    As she spoke the words, Violet realized how true they were. She couldn’t name the day she’d set aside The Disappointment and begun to live again. The healing had been slow, gradual. Sometimes painful. But somehow, while she’d been distracted with sea-bathing and country walks and shooting lessons—and absolutely no embroidery—the impossible had occurred.
    Her heart had mended.
    “I’m a different girl now,” she told him, sitting tall. “A stronger girl. Blast it, I’m not a girl at all—I’m a