Read Online To All the Rakes I've Loved Before (A Honeycote Novella) by Anne Barton - Free Book Online Page A

unbuttoned the fall at the front. His cock practically jumped into her hands.
    He watched as she cupped his stones, testing the weight of them. Groaned when she slid her hands up his length and down again. Clenched every muscle in his body when she skimmed her thumb over the small slit at the tip.
    “Show me how to pleasure you,” she said.
    Dear God. She knelt over him, gloriously naked but for the chemise hiked up around her hips. He took her hand in his and closed her fingers around the base. He showed her how to set up a rhythm and soon her hand was slick with droplets of his seed. She pumped slowly at first, as though she were afraid she’d break him. But when he moaned, she gave him a sultry smile and increased the pace and the pressure. Her breasts bounced slightly above him, and when he squeezed one, she sighed and bit her lower lip. Sweat popped out on his forehead and when his cock pulsed beneath her fingers, he knew it was almost over.
    He pulled her down for a ravaging kiss, savoring the taste of her mouth, the feel of her hands, the scent of her surrounding him. His release came like thunder, pounding through him and shaking him to the core.
    She cuddled up beside him, resting her head on his shoulder and swirling her fingertips through his chest hair. “That was very eye-opening,” she said with a yawn. “I shall never forget this night, Stephen.”
    He swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. “Nor will I.”
    He kissed her forehead and let intimacy wrap its tendrils around them, binding them together, if only for a few hours. “Rest now,” he said, pulling the edge of the quilt over her body.
    A few minutes later, her breathing turned slow and even. He knew he should carry her to her bed and return to his room, but he continued to hold her as long as he dared. He did not sleep.
    One night with Amelia had him questioning all the things he thought he knew. If marriage was something to be avoided, why was the thought of marrying her so damned appealing? Yes, she was bright, passionate, and independent. But there was more to it than that. She made him feel like he could be more than the man he was. Made him want to be. For her.
    So, as he held her, he thought about every conversation they’d shared, every touch, every kiss. And about what it might take to make her his. Forever.
    But when the fire turned to embers, he knew their time together had run out. He gently tucked her into her bed and returned to the floor before the fireplace to quickly straighten up and remove any evidence that he’d been there. He retrieved his shirt, folded the quilt and—
    Found a leather-bound book on the floor where they’d lain. He turned the book—perhaps it was a journal—over in his hand. It might have fallen off the mantel, or been tucked under the quilt before he’d spread it on the floor. The right thing to do would have been to place it on the little table beside the chair.
    But something about the book—maybe its well-worn cover or the wrinkled edges of its pages—hinted that it was important to Amelia. And he couldn’t resist a peek.
    He flipped open the book and held it near the glow of a low-burning lamp.
    The pages were filled with neat, even handwriting and the occasional cross-out. There were entries for various dates—a diary.
    He should have absolutely put down the book… but he didn’t.
    Some of the entries read like gossip rags—funny, satirical snippets of her own life. In others, she expounded on the advantages of remaining single. He smiled as he read one typical passage: “An unmarried woman may say ‘damnation’ when the need arises without worrying about offending the sensibilities of a priggish husband.”
    But then he flipped to the last entry—with yesterday’s date. “A single woman can take her pleasure with a man without running the risk of losing his companionship. Since there is no expectation of marriage on either side, neither party is disappointed when the interlude is