A Dangerous Man Read Online Free PDF

finally thrust
her away.
    His breathing was ragged, his eyes dark and demanding.
    She grew so afraid, not of him, but of what she was feeling. She thought she should speak, but she could not form the
words. She tried to turn away, but he captured her chin in his
hand.
    "You will wed me," he said. "In two days."
    She shook her head as she tried to push past him, but he
captured her arm before she could make her escape. She
couldn't bring herself to look at him. She was too ashamed,
and all she could think was two days, two days ...

    His hand clamped around her arm, he led her through the
antechamber to the entryway. Mere seconds passed before the
butler appeared with her cloak in his outstretched hand.
    Richard grabbed it and wrapped it around her shoulders.
    It was useless to resist. She did not even try.
    Did she look as disheveled as she felt? Did she look like a
woman who had been thoroughly and repeatedly kissed?
    She chanced a glance at the butler.
    He stood stiff and tall, his eyes carefully averted.
    "Escort Miss Jamison home and see to her safety," Richard
instructed a nearby footman, then he lowered his head and
whispered in her ear, "Two days"
    Richard watched her fly out the door and down the steps, a
half-dozen footmen racing to keep up with her. Once she was
safely ensconced in the carriage, he stumbled back to the
salon, slouched down on the settee, dropped his head onto the
cushions.
    That he had caused her trembling fear made him itch to
shove his fist into the wall. She was right. He was despicable.
His words had been coarse and vulgar, his actions crude.
    What malicious demon had possessed him to attack her
like that? Why had he felt such a blinding, raw rage at the
thought of her in the arms of another man?
    He did not understand his bizarre reaction.
    It was not as if he loved her, or wanted to marry her. She
was an inconvenience being thrust upon him by trickery and
deceit. So why should he care?
    Yet she had seemed so sincere as she'd told him she did not
wish to marry him, that they could not possibly suit.
    And again, his mind churned with the dilemma.
    Was she a total innocent? Or a vicious schemer?
    He did not know what had caused him to kiss her. He tried
not to think of the taste of her lips, the innocent abandon with which she'd surrendered to his kiss, her eyes darkening with
passion, hands running through his hair. Only the realization
that he had been mere moments away from pressing her to the
floor and ravishing her had given him the strength to thrust
her away.

    Good God, it must be the whisky.
    Either that, or he was insane.
    The faint scent of roses lingered in the room. He breathed
deeply, letting the fragrance fill his lungs. Good God, now he
was acting like a moonstruck calf.
    So, she was beautiful. So what?
    She was also the woman he was being forced to wed.
    Evil schemer or a total innocent, he did not care. He did
not want a wife. Especially one thrust upon him through
trickery and deceit. So what if her hair was the color of spun
gold and felt like the finest silk?
    So what if her eyes were the green of sparkling emeralds,
her skin smooth and pure, untouched by the rouge-pot?
    Her lips ... her lips ...
    The heavy throbbing in his groin told him exactly what he
wanted her to do with those lips.
    Richard jumped to his feet. He needed a woman. Any
woman would do. A quick trip to his mistress would cure the
fever Leah had fired in his blood.

     

Chapter Five
    Richard flung himself onto a chair before the fire in the
reading room at Brooks's. He ordered a bottle of brandy and
stared into the hearth, as if he would find the answers to his
dilemma in the flames. His body was hard and aching, yearning for release from the desire Leah had stirred within him.
    Much to his self-disgust, not only had he not buried himself between Margaret's oh-so-willing thighs, he had found
himself breaking off their arrangement, with no good reason
other than the