Read Online Swept Away By a Kiss by Katharine Ashe - Free Book Online

back faded away beneath his regard.
    “Perhaps.” He did not need to know any more about her, certainly not whether she was a virgin. Few among the ton would believe the truth if she told it anyway, and it could not possibly matter to this man either way.
    He held her gaze, his hand warm against the underside of her breast and immobile. He had halted his efforts at untying her. Valerie’s belly tightened, the sensation shivering outward. Her nipples prickled.
    “Etienne,” she whispered, not knowing what she intended or even wanted beyond freedom from her bindings. Not the frustrated craving coursing through her now. How could she want that? She had changed. She was not the same foolish girl she had been for so many years.
    The sound of his name seemed to recall him to his task. He dropped his gaze and finished with the knot. A muscle flexed in his hard jaw. The rope slackened, his grasp slipped away, and Valerie took in a deep, free breath.
    “Your father sent you to America, then,” he said, returning to his questioning as though nothing had passed between them.
    But nothing had, except in Valerie’s famished imagination.
    She nodded. Etienne’s gaze trailed her stomach to her hands, strapped palms-down against her abdomen. Valerie pressed her knees together, the chunk of hemp at the crux of her thighs digging into her flesh. She shifted her hips to ease the pressure, and the line at her neck twitched tight.
    Concern lit his tawny eyes. She wanted to ask what he meant to do next, but her tongue would not form words.
    He touched one finger lightly to the twine around her wrists.
    “This must wait for the rest.”
    Valerie understood. She had understood even as Fevre tied the knots while Bebain watched, a smile of glee stretched across his narrow face as he anticipated the Jesuit’s agony and her shame. Bebain wanted her hands trapped until the last, so Etienne would be forced to unravel all the other bonds. He did not want her to be able to free herself.
    But even as Bebain’s evil grin had clotted her blood, Fevre’s touch had not bothered her. As he fashioned her grim harness with unsteady hands, she suspected his fear of Bebain overwhelmed everything else and that he did not take any pleasure in the activity.
    Valerie doubted the priest would enjoy undoing what Fevre had done. He brought his rigid gaze to hers. He did not want this. He might find her attractive, but he was not a man to be easily swayed from his convictions.
    She parted her legs, drawing in a breath.
    “Just do it, and end this,” she clipped, taking refuge in her loathing for Bebain. If she concentrated her thoughts upon the evil delight the pirate captain took from imagining his captives’ misery, she might be able to distract her nerves.
    Etienne reached for the cords below her hips. The knot shifted against Valerie’s most tender parts, and heat erupted inside her. She tried to breathe slowly, to remain still as he grasped the tether and pried at it. She fixed her gaze upon his hand, hoping that watching his deliberate actions would cool the tendrils of fire racing from her core through her belly and limbs.
    It did not. The sight of his strong hands between her thighs sent shivers of turmoil through her body. She wanted him to turn his attentions away from the rope. To touch her. She ached for it so badly she bit down upon her lips to stop herself from begging him to.
    Etienne’s fingers grazed her. Valerie’s body flinched within, a sting of pleasure so intense a gasp shot from the back of her throat. Her eyes flew wide. But he did not seem to note it. She wrenched her gaze away, hoping he could not see the sweet, sudden throbbing of her flesh, so powerful that a moan gathered in her chest. Was it all inside her, or could he observe what he did to her and hate her for it? Hate himself?
    She forced herself to look, sucking in tiny gasps of air. Sheer fabric bunched between her flesh and the knot, the silk obviously damp. Etienne’s