Lady Northam's Wicked Surrender Read Online Free PDF Page B

too far.
    What was she thinking, letting Simon come into her room again? In the light of day. This time, she did not even have the excuse of the dream. Because when he’d awoken her a few minutes ago, she’d known exactly where she was and what he was doing. Still, she’d wanted him. Wanted to taste the passion in his arms as she had last night.
    Foolish, foolish, foolish, she reminded herself. He had given no explanation for his cruel abandonment and she was going to let him back in so easily? Let him charm and seduce her and then discard her as he did before? This time, there would be no Paul to protect her. She’d be heartbroken.
    “You should not be here.”
    His jaw hardened. “It seemed quite clear this morning that you wanted to feign illness and get up to your room so that we could be alone. And you had no protest when I kissed you.”
    He was right, of course. She’d done far more than let him kiss her. Even now, she could feel the hardness of his cock pressing against her. Despite the fact that he was a rake and only intended to slake his lust because she was present and available, her body was hot and aroused for him.
    “Well, I am protesting now, Simon. This is the wrong time. The wrong place. The wrong everything. I cannot allow you to ravish me here.”
    “Ravish you?” A dark look crossed his face. “You make it sound as if I am some dissolute reprobate who would pressure a lady against her will.”
    How easily he forgot the circumstances. “This is the second time that you have entered my chamber uninvited. The second time that you have kissed and caressed me in a way reserved for my husband.”
    “Paul,” he said, a hard edge to his tone.
    What? “Yes, Paul was my husband.”
    Rowena didn’t understand why he would be upset at the mention of Paul’s name. They’d been best friends for ages and after her marriage, when Simon had refused to speak to her, he had still corresponded with Paul.
    Simon’s icy gaze made her tremble. “Even now, you choose him over me.”
    It wasn’t a choice. Simon had left her. “You left. You moved far from me. You threw me aside like a soiled handkerchief! I did not choose Paul. You did not choose me!” How dare he? She lifted off of his body and moved to the other side of the bed. Despite the fact that her sex ached and she was still wet with desire, she couldn’t bear to touch him right now. Her anger won out over her trembling body.
    “I am not the one who abandoned you.” Simon stood up. He pointed at her. “You left me for my best friend. You seduced both of us and played hot and cold until you could get what you wanted.” He shook his head. “Now you’re doing it again. Playing me. Pushing me until I’m feverish for wanting you and then you deny me. Why did I ever think that maybe you had matured and grown out of your spoiled ways?”
     How dare he say such things. “The pot calling the kettle black. You are every bit the rake Paul said that you were. You speak to me now as if I were the one who climbed into your bed and made love to you. You are the worst kind of man. Preying upon a woman in a weakened state, pushing your advantage.”
    She could not allow herself to be used by him again. It had crushed her the last time. While he was away at war, various scenarios of him lying injured in an infirmary or dead on the battlefield had consumed her thoughts. Months passed with no word until Paul had received a letter from him. A letter in which Simon denied any feelings of affection for her. She’d spent weeks in bed crying.
    It had devastated her when Paul told her the truth. All of the time that Simon had courted her, that the three of them had laughed together, attending parties and the Opera had meant little to Simon. She was merely a way for him to pass the time, an amusement and no more.
    “Do not dare try to blame me,” Simon yelled. “I am the one who got replaced by my best friend when you thought you could find a better match. When