Read Online Taming Charlotte by Linda Lael Miller - Free Book Online Page B

kidnapped at the order of a pirate called Raheem,” he said, but Charlotte barely registered the words because she was swamped in panic. “Khalif thinks he’ll try to get you back.”
    “You could protect me!” Charlotte realized, to her humiliation, that she was almost pleading, but she couldn’t help herself.
    “No,” Patrick said gravely, after swallowing visibly. “I have things to do, in places you cannot go. I would have to leave you alone often, and I will not do that.”
    Charlotte felt tears sting her eyes. She raised her fists to pound Patrick’s broad chest in helpless fury; he caught her wrists in his hands and stayed the blows with the merest contraction of muscle.
    “Liar!” Charlotte sobbed, completely overwhelmed. “I hate you—how could you do this—?”
    Patrick silenced her with a gentle shake, still gripping her wrists. “I could never hurt you,” he said, in a raspy whisper.
    “You’re lying!” Charlotte insisted. “Why should I believe a devil, a white slaver, a pirate—”
    “This is why,” Patrick answered brusquely. Then he hauled her against him, tilted her head back by plunging his fingers into the hair beneath her braid, and kissed her.
    Charlotte struggled for a moment, then sagged in temporary defeat as he touched her lips with his tongue, made them open for him. Their tongues battled, writhed together like lovers, and battled again. Charlotte couldn’t breathe, didn’t care if she never drew a breath again as long as the kiss didn’t have to end. Her nipples pulsed against the fabric of her robe and the hardness of Patrick’s chest, and therewas a hot, melting sensation in her depths that promised some primal upheaval.
    Patrick lowered her skillfully to the pillows, never breaking the kiss, until she lay supine and gasping beside him. “This is the reason, Charlotte,” he reiterated, cupping one of her breasts with his hand and then teasing the hidden nipple with his fingertips. “I couldn’t give you to any other man, because I want you for myself.”
    Charlotte’s senses, so long attuned to this man by means of her fantasies, would not be denied by anything so mundane as logic. She wanted to give herself, even
needed
to give herself, to Patrick, be he pirate, rescuer, or avenging angel.
    She trembled and gave a soft cry as he bent his head to kiss the pulse point at the base of her throat.
    After an interval of almost excruciating pleasure, during which Charlotte untied the black ribbon that held back Patrick’s hair and then entwined her fingers in the richness of it, he met her eyes again.
    “I want to look at you, Charlotte,” he said gravely. “Will you let me do that?”
    She was lost, already adrift on a whirl of emotion and physical wanting, and she nodded.
    Gently Patrick removed her robe, and she lay before him on the soft pillows, bare and vulnerable and feeling truly beautiful for the first time in her life.
    At first he did not touch her, but he set her afire by letting his eyes travel slowly over her length. Then he caressed a curve here, kissed a hollow there, and Charlotte uttered a series of soft, jerky sighs.
    When he simultaneously closed his lips around the peak of one of her breasts and laid his hand on the mound of moist curls between her legs, she arched her back and moaned.
    Patrick’s chuckle vibrated against her breast, but he continued to draw on her nipple, to tease it with the edge of his teeth, to lave it unmercifully with his tongue. In the meantime, he burrowed through the silken tangle to boldly touch the nubbin of flesh pulsing there.
    Charlotte spread her legs, unable to stop herself, and her hips began to undulate under Patrick’s hand, obeying him, letting him set their rhythm. He enjoyed her other breast as though it were a ripe fruit, then trailed kisses down over her quivering belly.
    “While you wait for me, Charlotte,” he murmured, “remember this. Remember that I taught you pleasure.”
    She felt the tiny