Read Online Something Reckless by Jess Michaels - Free Book Online Page B

about activities. They were more about her charms. One letter had been entirely about the erotic beauty of her hair. Of his fantasies that she would take it down in front of him, let it tickle his body, wrap it around his cock…
    Penelope surged to her feet and paced away from the letters. She had no illusions that those heated words weren’t altering her. Ruining her. Making her into something she didn’t understand.
    She should burn them, but she couldn’t manage it. They brought her too much sinful pleasure. Haunted her nights. She had given up the pretense of resisting their erotic draw. The past week had been sleepless and restless as she brought herself to completion again and again, and yet felt less than satisfied each time.
    She clenched a fist against the mantel. A deep hunger, one she had never allowed herself to feel before, had been awakened in her. A dark desire that made her thighs clench against empty wetness when she thought of the letters or the sinful things she had seen on Jeremy’s field trips.
    “My lady?”
    Penelope turned with a hot blush to face the door and a waiting footman. She refused to meet his eyes, fearful anyone who looked at her now would see her wicked thoughts.
    “What is it Appleton?”
    “The Duke of Kilgrath has arrived, my lady. He awaits you in the west parlor.”
    Penelope started. Her brain was becoming so addled, she had completely lost track of time and utterly forgotten the appointment Jeremy had made to visit with her.
    “Please inform him I will be down directly.”
    As the servant bowed away, Penelope moved to the full-length mirror in the corner of her dressing chamber. Although she was probably silly to think her servant would read her outrageous thoughts and fantasies with a look, Jeremy was a different story. He would surely see something sinful in her demeanor if she didn’t clear her mind.
    She smoothed her hair and ran her hands over the high waist of her pretty blue gown. She looked like a lady. She could behave and think like one, as well.
    Slowly, she made her way down the stairs to the comfortable parlor where Jeremy waited. Drawing a calming breath, she pushed the door open.
    He was not sitting, but leaning against the wall beside the fireplace when she entered, one of the books from her library in hand. She caught her breath at the sight of him. His slightly too long hair swept over his forehead, his green eyes were utterly focused on the words he was reading.
    Her knees began to shake at the sight of him. If her admirer’swords and the sinful images she’d been exposed to had haunted her, so had Jeremy’s face. How many times had she pictured him while she pleasured herself in the furtive darkness of her empty bed?
    In how many dreams had it been Kilgrath who slid beneath her covers and woke her with the shattering pleasure another man wrote about in such detail?
    “Byron,” he said, jolting her from her thoughts as he closed the book. “Rather sensual for a woman who leads the fight against excess.”
    Penelope blinked. “I’ve always thought of Byron as romantic rather than sensual.”
    He smiled as he set the book on a nearby table and approached her. “In my experience, sometimes romance and sensuality are close to the same thing.”
    Penelope swallowed hard as he stopped no more than a foot in front of her. He stared at her face, then tilted his head to the side.
    “Are you quite well?”
    She blinked. “Of course.”
    “You look…” He hesitated, as if searching for the correct word.
    In the brief silence, Penelope tensed. She could think of a few to describe herself. Hypocritical. Wanton.
    “Tired,” he finally finished.
    She shook her head. “No, I’m fine. I simply lost track of time. I’m sorry if you were forced to wait overly long for me.”
    “Not at all. But are you ready to depart now?”
    She drew back. “Depart?”
    It was the middle of the day. Where in the world could he possibly want to take her in the middle of