Read Online The Darkest Sin by Caroline Richards - Free Book Online Page B

glance was hard. “I warned you last night, Miss Woolcott, and here you are today taking me up on my offer.”
    â€œDon’t be ludicrous,” she huffed. “You deliberately misunderstand.”
    â€œThen what did I just hear?”
    She scraped back her chair to rise, and he immediately followed suit, towering over her and in that one movement asserting his dominance. The three men who had entered the tavern earlier looked up from their tankards of foaming beer, eager to take in some light entertainment. Rowena fastened the toggles of her cloak. “I believe we are finished here,” she said tightly.
    â€œI sincerely hope so, Miss Woolcott.” Rowena’s view was filled with the wall of his chest, mere inches from her nose, the faint scent of vetiver tantalizing. “As I mentioned several times, I’m not the man you’re looking for.”
    â€œI shouldn’t be too sure.” The words sounded feeble, all the more so when she flinched away from him. Raw, potent desire was making her begin to tighten and ache in a way that was both familiar and disturbing.
    â€œWhat will it take to finally frighten you off, Miss Woolcott ? Don’t you already have enough with which to concern yourself?” He leaned down, his breath fanning the smidgen of skin left bare at her throat. She forced herself to look into the flat gray of his eyes. “Mistress? I don’t think so,” he said.
    Despite their audience, Rushford pulled her close against him, the pressure of his hands on her arms enough to slip her easily into his embrace. Then he lowered his head slowly and kissed her.
    A rush of confusion. Fear and danger blended with an intoxicating gust of desire. Rowena’s body began to fight against the logic of self-control at the first touch of his lips. She had never been kissed before, yet the contact with this stranger felt overwhelmingly familiar, her lips blooming and responding to his as though she’d been born to it. The incursion of his mouth began slowly and leisurely, as if they had all the time in the world, an easy exploration of every soft corner of her mouth, subtle and dangerous. The fire he stoked flicked through her veins, like a hot bath after a cold day outdoors, until she thought she’d die from the pleasure it invoked. His hands tangled in the knot of hair at her nape, his palms cradling her against him, sampling and seducing, until she no longer knew where his mouth left off and hers began.
    His tongue was rough velvet, tasting and teasing. What began as one slow kiss multiplied, the dance of his tongue conjuring erotic images, mirroring the tasting and touching, the thrust and parry, as shocking images flashed through her mind. Her legs wrapped around his waist. Her breasts brushing his chest, the tips swollen. The fullness between her thighs, inexorable and undeniable.
    She was brought back to earth when he pulled away from her mouth, only to begin trailing his lips down her cheek, to her chin and to the pulse that beat at her throat. He dragged his tongue along the small strip of skin made available by the collar of her cloak. His hot breath scorched, and she arched her back as he pressed her body more closely against him. Her thigh slid instinctively and familiarly between his legs, and even with the barrier of her skirts and his trousers, it felt strangely like coming home. Shocked, her mind suddenly clear, she pushed him away. Rushford released her instantly.
    Her breath was coming quickly. “I know what you’re doing,” she said, a sob nearly escaping her throat. “And it won’t work.” She stepped away from him, sawdust sliding beneath her boots, until she was halted by the table at her backside. Stingingly aware they were not alone, she retreated into herself with mortification. The three men at the adjacent table were sniggering into their tankards, while Rushford seemed entirely nonplused at the scene they had