Dangerous Magic Read Online Free PDF

parted lips, her red hair cascading down to her rounded hips. He'd marveled at her perfect breasts, her flat stomach, the small patch of red hair between her legs. When she'd turned, he'd caught the shape of her buttocks, round and smooth. In his breeches, he could feel his cock stirring anew at the memory. No, he certainly couldn't face her now.
    Lark was likely still angry with him anyway. He'd threatened her with a spanking, after all, and had forced her to remember the one time he'd been brave enough to follow through on his threat. Lark was a wild spirit, but one that needed taming.
    He thought back on the spanking he'd given her so long ago. He'd be lying to himself to say he'd not been aroused by punishing Lark's fair bottom. It was a perfect set of haunches the girl possessed. But it wasn't just sexual arousal that had been awakened in Colin MacGregor the day he'd turned the fiery redhead over his knee. It had been a deep protectiveness that had also been aroused within him. And something else. Love.
    He thought about Lark all the time. What was she doing? Was she safe? Over and over she'd assured her that her magic protected her. It frustrated and disappointed Lark that he doubted the power of the magic to keep her safe. It frustrated him, too. There was a time when he did not doubt the forces of nature, the protection of the gods and goddesses. He'd been a child then. How had growing up here changed his faith while leaving hers intact. What was it about Lark that kept her unfettered to the grinding convention of life in the colonies?
    Perhaps it was because she was still a child of nature, while the cloud of mysticism no longer shrouded his vision. New forces were afoot, forces blown in on the winds of religious change. This was a religion run not by the gentle give and take of nature, but by the whims of man. Danger abounded.
    Lark would have to be warned - and soon. Even if Lark ignored the danger, Colin Magregor could not. And he knew that if it threatened Lark Willoughby he'd lay down his life to protect her if that's what it took.

    * * *

    Millicent Salter pulled up the dirty hem of her skirt and carefully checked her shoes for mud. She didn't want to track any filth into the village shop and further incur the disdain of Gertrude Hatch, who'd already be irritated to see her show up with only a few coins in her pocket.
    Millicent knew she didn't have enough to buy anything choice, and silently prayed to Jesus that it would be Lester and not his mother manning the store that day. As she stepped over the threshold, she gave a silent prayer of thanks. The butcher, his thick arms covered in blood, was chopping meat on a table. Outside the back door, she could see a rendering pot boiling away. The smell drifted in with the breeze and would have bothered most people, but not Millicent. She and her mother took in laundry from the families, and had dealt with their share of stained birthing and deathbed sheets handed to them from people who could afford washing linens but not replacing them.
    Lester looked up at Millicent as she entered and smiled. "Good day, Miss Salter," he said. "Come to buy some meat for your table?"
    Millicent looked around, expecting Gertrude to fly through the door as she usually did and announce there was nothing available that a washerwoman could afford.
    "If it can be had for a good price," said Millicent. "Mama's been sick and work has been scant lately." As she spoke, she reached into the pocket of her apron to finger the three coins she'd brought before bending down and pretending to check her buckle. She lingered a bit, allowing Lester a good view of breasts threatening to burst free of the bodice she wore.
    When she stood, Lester was watching her with a slack-jawed, transfixed look she pretended not to notice.
    "Uh, yes Miss Salter. I was just thinking of you this morning. I have something put aside, in fact, just hoping you would come in. It's a rather fatty, bit of venison but you'll be