Absolute Pleasure Read Online Free PDF Page B

contours of her figure.
    He was impatient to see her in her full, naked glory. She would be a feast for the eyes—and hopefully for the hands and the mouth.
    At the contemplation of her delectable charms, he felt the giddy rush that persistently overwhelmed him when he was about to initiate a new conquest. There was no finer pleasure to be had—not even from his painting—than the exhilaration he endured during those fantastic days of a burgeoning affair.
    "You said she has twenty-seven years," he mentioned.
    "By my calculations, yes."
    “Why do you suppose her father never married her off?”
    "Because he's an ass."
    For John, that was sufficient explanation, but Gabriel probed anyway. "Might you expound a bit?"
    "No, but once you're acquainted with her, you'll see what I mean." John rose and meandered to the sideboard, depositing his dirtied glass for the maid to deal with in the morning. "When would you predict she'll arrive to make inquiries about an appointment?"
    Gabriel recalled the blush on her cheeks, her initial caution, then the unfolding curiosity. With delight and candor, she'd assessed his every move, until by the conclusion, they'd established an affinity, a bond. When he'd espied Helen in the crowd and departed from Lady Elizabeth's presence, he'd sensed that he could have brazenly kissed her without much opposition.
    Her defenses were low; her melancholy high. She was so ready for a change!
    "I imagine she'll be around in two or three days."
    "That soon?"
    "Without a doubt," Gabriel answered confidently, and where women were concerned, he was rarely wrong.
    Elizabeth sat at her vanity, staring at her reflection in the mirror. She couldn't have said how long she'd dawdled, studying her features, checking for perfection and flaws, and finding mostly the latter.
    With a resigned sigh, she shook her head at her whimsicality, marveling at her sudden engrossment with her looks. Not since she'd been an adolescent, and such frivolous things had mattered, had she tried so hard to impartially judge her characteristics: winsome face, clear skin, bright eyes. Her hair was too dark, though, an oddity she'd hated when she was young and striving not to stick out while drowning in a swarm of blond girls.
    While she was customarily meticulous as to her daily appearance, she never bothered over the assemblage of her physical traits, but since her encounter with Gabriel Cristofore, she'd developed a heightened interest in elusive detail.
    What specifically had he seen that had spurred him to her side with words of flattery and adulation?
    A secret thrill coursed through her. The flood of compliments he'd bestowed had given her enormous pleasure. She was allowed a small speck of vanity, wasn't she? She had never been courted, had seldom been noticed by members of the opposite sex, so there was something absurdly phenomenal about being singled out by such a handsome man.
    His breathtaking approach had stirred her in more ways than she cared to acknowledge. The twisted covers on her bed provided significant evidence of how she'd tossed and turned throughout the night, reviewing every comment he'd expressed, every response she'd uttered.
    Naturally, she hadn't been able to stop thinking about the woman to whom he'd been making love. Though it was improper for her to have watched, she wasn't sorry that she had. Her indiscretion had opened up an entirely new world. She felt as if she'd peeked behind a forbidden curtain— which, in effect, she had—and that, as a result, she would never be the same.
    She couldn't prevent herself from ruminating over Mr. Cristofore and what it would be like to be me object of his amatory attention. Previously, she'd never wasted time brooding on the more private side of male-female relations, but now, having been totally immersed in the erotic scene, she couldn't reflect upon anything else.
    Clearly, there was a lusty facet to her disposition, because she'd become integrally absorbed by lewd