I Adored a Lord Read Online Free PDF Page A

fresh eggs or a cream or a cake of soap, which I usually take to mean they think a woman should smell better than I do. This struggling in straw soaked with puppy urine isn’t helping that problem, by the way. So now get off me .”
    But he wasn’t going to release her. She saw the change in his eyes and felt it in his body the instant it happened. She hadn’t much experience with men beyond the occasional brush of hands when she was holding on to one end of a lambing ewe and a farmer was hanging on to the other end. But she knew enough about rutting animals to recognize the signs of arousal in the male of the species, even her own.
    The pupils of her attacker’s eyes were wide in the darkness. Then his gaze dipped to her mouth. He might not have initially followed her into the stall with rapine intent. But it certainly seemed to be on his mind now.
    â€œYou smell good to me,” he said, his voice deeper than before, like a warm autumn night, the vowels especially round. Not French. Italian? Spanish? He must have come with one of the other guests—­one of the other guests who had wretched judgment when hiring stable hands.
    â€œI—­”
    â€œAnd, por Deus ,” he said upon a catch in his throat, his eyes hard upon her mouth, “you are lovely.”
    The rutting urge must have overcome him. The only male creature that had ever considered her lovely was Beast, and that was because she sometimes smelled like bacon.
    She must distract him.
    â€œI can help with that bruise on your brow,” she said, struggling against panic.
    â€œCan you?” He seemed bemused. Jars to the head could scramble the brain.
    â€œIt’s starting to swell. It will leave a painful wound that could fester. Let me up and I’ll ask the housekeeper for—­”
    His mouth came down upon hers without further warning. Not hard or violently or forcefully. But fully, with complete contact.
    Ravenna pinned her lips together. Breathing through her nose, she smelled horses and straw and something else foreign and male and . . . good . Like whiskey without the bite. Or well-­loved leather. He released her wrist and with his big hand cupped her cheek.
    She did not push him away. She must . But his scent, the heat of his skin, the sensation of his lips upon hers—­teasing, encouraging, urging—­paralyzed her. The pad of his thumb stroked gently along her throat. His touch was so warm. Intimate. Tender . Tingling pleasure mingled with the panic in her belly. She could kiss him back. She could discover what it was like to really kiss a man.
    She couldn’t .
    He had one thing in mind after kissing, and she wasn’t prepared to oblige him.
    She did what Beast would have done to an attacker.
    â€œ Colhões! ” He jerked away and rolled off her and to his feet.
    She scuttled back, skirts tangling in her boots as she jumped up, leaping to avoid puppies. The man’s shadowed eyes swung to her, anger sparking in them in the dim light. Blood dripped between his fingers clamped over his mouth.
    â€œI hope I bit it off,” she said, unwisely.
    He dropped his hand and his lower lip was still intact, though bleeding down his chin. “Damn it, woman. I only kissed you.”
    â€œWhile you had me trapped beneath you.”
    â€œYes, well, obviously that was a mistake.” He dabbed gingerly at the blood with the back of his sleeve. He was tall, his shoulders broad, the sinews in his neck pronounced. He did not sound like a stable hand, rather more like a gentleman, but those sinews were like a farmer’s. This man knew physical labor and he had trapped her with little effort. He could have easily done anything to her he wished. He still could. The pitchfork lay close to his booted feet. He blocked the door. She was still trapped.
    â€œGet out of my way,” she said, “or I’ll kick you in the colhões even harder than I bit