Invitation to Scandal Read Online Free PDF Page A

these clothes. I want you naked, skin to skin, when I take you.”
    Naked.
    Naked! Take her ...
    She shook her head and began to struggle in earnest. This was a mistake. A dreadful mistake. He couldn’t really want to “take her” in an open field where anyone could stumble across them. Were all men pigs? Slaves to the animal hanging between their thighs?
    However, he did seem to have forgotten about the barrel.
    Her hands rose between them, to batter against his chest, forcing some space between their bodies.
    “No. Don’t. Please ...”
    At her word “please” he hesitated. Rheda held her breath, feeling her heart race with trepidation. With a man of Lord Strathmore’s ilk, she may have already gone too far to appeal to his noble self. She could not rely on his honor, because he did not know her true identity.
    Now he never could.
    His face was disquietingly close to hers. She found herself transfixed by his mouth, a mouth she could still feel and taste.
    God help her. She wanted him.
     
    Rufus could see where her gaze rested. The feel of her eyes upon him ... If anything, his desire for her grew. He was so hard, so aroused ...
    This woman was all softness and curves. She had an air about her that teased and confused—a combination of innocence and siren. Her beauty caught him in her web, and he could not break free. He had an overwhelming need to stake a claim on the wild gypsy woman lying panting in his arms.
    After the amount of riding he’d done today, searching for any clues as to the area Dark Shadow used for his illegal activities, he would have thought sex was the last thing on his mind. His body obviously thought differently.
    He had not been looking for a further dalliance. Lucy had been willing and very obliging. But the barrel meant he needed this woman. What better way to ensure her cooperation than seducing her, using pleasure to conquer any reluctance in revealing the source of her barrel.
    He could take her, here and now. He saw it in her eyes. She wanted him. Why then did she hesitate?
    Rufus’s arms tightened around her. The flowery scent of her filled his nostrils. He inwardly cursed. He wanted her, but this wasn’t about giving rein to his baser instincts. He needed information. Information about the origins of her barrel. With the utmost reluctance he tempered his desire.
    The barrel could hold the key to his mission. A traitor was using a Kent smuggling operation as cover. His capture would help the war effort. The spy sending vital war intelligence to Napoleon had to be stopped.
    When he’d rounded the bend in the road, the barrel was the first thing that had drawn his attention, after which he’d become enchanted at the sight of the golden-haired goddess prone against the tree. His hunger for her was growing, as was his admiration. She’d faced him with bravado, trapped. She would have been hurting, yet she faced him down like a tigress. But when she lay in a dead faint in his arms, he’d felt every soft sensuous curve.
    A powerful, overwhelming desire swept through him again. He immediately pictured her silken tresses falling over his bare skin as she rode naked above him. However, at present, the most powerful aphrodisiac was the chance her seduction could lead him to Dark Shadow.
    He frowned. If Dark Shadow was a down-on-his-luck noble, perhaps she’d been given the barrel—payment for services rendered. To have a woman of her beauty, he’d pay almost anything, and he was sure other men would, too.
    His eyebrow rose. Perhaps that is what she was after. Why had she stopped him when he could tell the sensuous beauty before him was as aroused as he?
    By the state of her drab dress, money was in short supply. He could pay her. He was certainly wealthy enough, and he’d paid for the pleasure of a woman’s body numerous times before. In his line of work, working for the government, it was almost impossible to keep a mistress, so his liaisons were frequent and fleeting, often in