Obsession Read Online Free PDF Page A

to need it. She’s in a right mood, I assure you.”
    “How bad is it?”
    He scratched his tuft of gray hair. “The claws are sharpened and I detected a gnashing of teeth.”
    “Ah, so she’s in a relatively good mood, then.”
    We exchanged dry smiles.

4
    “B ASTARD ! T HERE HAS NEVER BEEN A CHARITABLE, kind, or concerned bone in your body. Your reputation and name personify hedonism. Yet you walk away from your commitment to me for some mousey little nurse—”
    “There was nothing remotely mousey about Maria. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.”
    With a flurry of her skirts, Edwina marched to the door of the drawing room and glared up the stairs toward the second floor.
    “You assured me that you were over what feelings you once felt for her.”
    She turned and focused her blue eyes hard on mine. “Now what am I supposed to do? I blame you for my predicament.”
    I drank deeply of my port and set aside the empty glass, preparing myself for the inevitable tantrum. I was beginning to feel numb—not just from inebriation, but from a weariness that made my bones ache.
    Had it only been three days since I had stood on an altar prepared to marry the little she-bitch? Only days since the course of my very existence had shifted, since long-dead hope had ignited to fan dreams I had once imagined were only for men like my brother?
    “I had nothing to do with your predicament, Edwina. Had you practiced abstinence occasionally—”
    “Had you not volunteered marriage, I might have flushed this unfortunate situation from my life. Now it’s too late. Dear God, what am I supposed to do with a child on my own?”
    “You have money. Buy it a nanny and chuck it under the chin occasionally. Send him off to school as soon as possible, and you needn’t worry about him but for the occasional holiday.”
    “My God, can you imagine what it all will do to my breasts? The idea of something tugging my nipple makes my blood run cold.”
    “Since when?” I smirked.
    She narrowed her eyes. “Tell me, darling. Is this rush to rescue your little nurse simply a way to once again spit in your grandmother’s eye?”
    “What do you think, Edwina?”
    “Hmm. By the looks of you, I could almost believe you’re sincere.”
    “I was very forthright regarding my feelings for Maria.”
    “Yes, I do seem to recall your moping over her…when you weren’t ranting about killing her. I think I’m jealous.”
    “I think not.”
    “How much will it take to change your mind?”
    “Are you attempting to bribe me?”
    “It worked before.”
    She approached me where I sat, sprawled in a deeply cushioned high-back chair near a window. She had the look of a feline in heat, and I knew what was coming.
    Edwina used sex to manipulate those whose minds functioned on one level—between their legs. She had the ability to sniff out such weaknesses as adeptly as a hound on a wounded fox. Hounds, however, went for the quick kill, a gnashing of their teeth in the terrified animal’s throat. Edwina, on the other hand, enjoyed the game—toying with the emotionally sick and enfeebled, driving them to madness.
    I understood that, and for that she both respected and feared me. I was a challenge, and she had been more than willing to pay for it. Dearly.
    As she eased to her knees between my legs, the skirt of her pale green gown rose up like sea froth beneath her magnificent breasts, revealed by the low-cut décolleté frock fitting snugly beneath her bosom.
    Her breasts were like soft white pillows into which I enjoyed burying my face. She always smelled like rose petals—drenched in dizzying fragrance. Even now her aroused nipples thrust through the thin material—twin peaks of deliciousness that, despite my inebriation—because of it—made me grow hard.
    I was a man, after all.
    Once, I would have taken the filmy material covering those breasts and roughly torn it asunder. Roughness excited her, made her pant and squirm and beg