Lord Ruin Read Online Free PDF Page B

he murmured in a honeyed voice. “The exquisite blending of calf to knee.” God knows but her legs were exquisite. She winced, and he couldn’t imagine how he could possibly have hurt her. A glance at her foot told him how. A dark purple bruise ran from below her ankle bone forward to the middle arch of her very dainty foot. Probably hurt like the devil. “What have you done to your ankle?” He was only mildly curious, but he asked anyway. His fingers stroked upward, as far as her knee.
    “Oh.”
    His hand inched higher. “Yes, love?”
    “Oh.” Now he had his hand on her thigh. Her very upper thigh. “You are a wicked man.” She giggled and despite it being a giggle, he wasn’t put off. The silly sound convinced him all was exactly as he supposed. A lover of Devon’s who had injured an ankle. The familiar accent of his own class suggested she was perhaps once a governess now come to a more profitable employment. With her in his room and so wonderfully the flirt, why should he think otherwise?
    Devon was just the sort to give up a perfectly acceptable mistress because he fancied himself in love with some old maid from the country. He considered taking her right then, coyness be damned. As wildly as she’d come, perhaps she’d enjoy a hard, fast coupling. He stood up and shucked his trousers, watching as she recovered herself.
    A small frown line appeared between her brows. That surprised him. He’d been expecting a soft smile, an inviting pout. Slowly, her eyes focused. She did not immediately look at him. When she did, the frown deepened. She closed her eyes, then opened them again. “Who are you?” she whispered. “A dream? Surely, a dream. A wonderful dream.”
    “A man who wants you,” he replied.
    “You aren’t Devon.”
    “No.” He softly laughed. “Indeed not.” He stepped out of his underclothes and thought about how much he wanted to touch her breasts.
    “Lord Ruin.” But for the odd vagueness about her, almost a blankness, he might have thought her better than pretty. Some men preferred their women on the feeble side. He never had. At the moment, however, he was more than willing to overlook any defect in her intelligence.
    “The very same, my love.”
    “Oh,” she said in a voice that sounded, to his ears, as if she were going to fall back to sleep. “Then it’s all right. I know who you are.” She laughed. “How fortuitous it’s you, though. Quite a stroke of luck. I did so hope to see you in private.”
    “Did you now?” Even with the rather vague expression, he revised his initial opinion of her looks. Her features were more than a little enticing. Nice mouth, good cheekbones. In the soft darkness, her eyes showed indeterminate color and sleepy passion. Naked as the day he was born, he lay on the bed this time, leaning his weight on one elbow. “Whatever are you doing so far away from me?” He chuckled when he saw her looking at him. As if she’d never seen a man before. “Touch me,” he said softly. “Go on,” he whispered when she did nothing except gaze at him from half-lidded eyes. “I’d like you to.”
    Shyly, she reached out. “Lord Ruin.” Fingertips traced the ridges of his abdomen down to his pelvis. She kept her attention on her hands. For a time, he watched her face, enjoying the slow increase of arousal in her eyes and the way her mouth curved ever so slightly. He groaned when she arrived at his pelvis, sliding over bone and sinew. He could almost believe her an innocent, the way she looked at him and how she started everything as if afraid she’d step wrong. But no innocent ever took a man’s balls in her hands, as the little witch was doing right now.
    Devon was a fool. Flat out a bloody fool, to give her up. He wondered what Devon wanted from him that he’d gone to the trouble of finding a woman so unexpectedly to his taste. A specific desire popped into his head, and he rather thought she was just the woman to satisfy it. “Kiss me, take me in