Bound by Bliss Read Online Free PDF Page B

candlelight. His lips drew taut as a dancing couple blocked his path, but his eyes never left her. She felt as pinned as an insect on a piece of parchment.
    She would not cower, she would—she would flee.
    Tearing her eyes from his, she turned and ran. Well, she walked very quickly. It was a rather crowded room. Luckily she’d attended many previous balls in the house and knew just where to turn and scamper. The ladies’ retiring room was up those stairs to the left. Duldon would never follow her in there, but he might just stand outside glowering at every woman who passed, and there was no other escape from the small closed room.
    If she headed straight down the hall she could sneak out to the gardens through the library. Now that was a plan. Once she was in the gardens he would never find her and then she could circle back in. He couldn’t bother her once she was dancing with someone else. Drat. She should have thought of that a moment ago before she fled. There must have been some gentleman within grabbing distance who would have been happy to dance. Now it was too late.

    Hurrying down the hallway, past countless pictures of countless ancestors, she came to the library door. A quick glance over her shoulder. No, he hadn’t made the turn and followed, at least not yet.
    She placed her hand on the handle and paused before pushing down. The door squeaked. A sudden memory of its creaking sound came to her. She didn’t know why she remembered, but she did. Blast and drat. Pulling in a deep breath, she pressed down as slowly as she could. A soft whine sounded, but no more. Opening the door only enough to pass through, she slid sideways through it, easing it shut behind.
    She released her breath quietly, almost soundlessly, closing her eyes and listening. There was no tap of footsteps in the hall. Perhaps she was safe.
    Another breath and then she eased her eyes open, blinking as she adjusted to the dark. The high shelves of the library surrounded her, and across from her—she blinked again. She was not alone.
    She was very, very far from alone.
    She shut her eyes again. The image burned into her brain. For the briefest of moments she thought she was back in another time, another place—but that had been very, very different from this. Although it too had happened at a soirée.

    She slitted her eyes, peered out, tightened them shut again. No, she had not been mistaken.
    A woman, face alight with moonlight, gown pushed below her high firm breasts, stood pressed tight against the bookshelves. One of her hands rose, as Bliss watched, to circle a ripe berry of a nipple and then to pinch it hard. Her head fell back, her throat stretched, her mouth opened in a silent moan. Almost without thought Bliss felt her own hand rise to stroke her bodice, her own nipples rose to press against the fabric. What would it feel like to touch oneself like that? She washed herself, of course, but never had she stroked and pinched and plucked. Never seen her nipples stretch and darken. She couldn’t even imagine them that swollen, that wanting, that…
    She peeked again.
    The woman’s hand moved and Bliss felt as if her own breast were touched, the nipple pulled out and then released, the soft flicker of skin upon skin. Her belly tightened in a way she’d never imagined, a longing growing.
    Her eyes squeezed shut. It was all too much to take.
    She swallowed, her mouth dry.
    Carefully she opened one eye, curious to why the woman was there—and at the same time shocked and breathless. She didn’t understand the rest of the feelings that burned through her body, but…
    There was a man there as well. She’d missed him the first time because he was down low, on his knees, and he was…
    Bliss slammed her eyes shut again.
    No, he could not be doing what she thought he was. Why on earth would a man be doing that?

    Her eyes squeezed tight as she tried to push the picture from her mind.
    She failed.
    Still breathless, she slitted her eyes so