Seven Nights to Forever Read Online Free PDF Page B

he gave a small shake of his head. “Unnecessary. This is acceptable.”
    “It is?”
    “Yes.”
    He did not want to move to her bedchamber? It was an almost completely foreign notion. She had heard tales from others in the house of men who only wanted a willing ear, a pretty woman to pay attention to them. Those who wanted companionship and nothing more. But she had never encountered such a specimen.
    Perhaps he only wanted . . .
    She let her hand slowly drift up his leg, her touch light, teasing yet deliberate in its intent. The heat from his body penetrated the soft wool of his trousers, warming the fabric as if he had been lazing beneath the hot summer sun for hours. The moment her fingertips coasted over the placket of his trousers, the heavy bulk hidden within jumped. A quick thump that sent a bolt of unexpected desire straight to her core.
    Then those long fingers captured hers again.
    He laced his fingers through hers, resting their joined hands on his thigh. The hoarse scratch as he cleared his throat seemed to fill the room. “What is your favorite spot in Hyde Park?”
    She blinked, her wits scrambled from the abrupt return to their previous topic of conversation. “The Serpentine,” she heard herself answer, as if from a great distance.
    “I shall have to remember to stop there on my next detour.”
    The desire that had begun to seep into her veins withered and died under the weight of confusion. He wanted to remain in her sitting room, and nothing more? Did he not understand what he had purchased? Oh, that was surely a ridiculous notion. No man paid for the most expensive whore in the house without a firm understanding of the pleasures that awaited him. Rubicon would have seen to that. Yet he did not seem to want them. She cast her mind about, desperately searching for some sort of explanation for his perplexing behavior. His body reacted to her touch, yet he steadfastly refused to take the openings she gave him.
    They should be in her bedchamber by now. She should be finding those places on his body, those spots unique unto each man that would ratchet his lust to the heavens. He should be panting for more and not looking at her with an unnerving hint of compassion on his handsome face.
    Was it something she said, or had not said? Something she had done to cause him to reconsider? Or was his hesitation not borne of the situation? Perhaps it was simply her he did not want.
    Perhaps he had decided he did not wish to follow in so many men’s footsteps.
    If that were the case, then she certainly could not fault him. Did any man truly want what could so easily be bought?
    It made her acutely aware of how many men she had opened her arms to since she had first walked into this house. So many pairs of greedy hands had groped her body, used her, taken their fill of her, only to be followed by yet another. They all blended together, indistinguishable from the next, yet she felt the distinct weight of each individual that made up the whole.
    Each one tarnishing her, tainting her, until she had at last been rendered sullied beyond even lust’s negligible standards.
    “You are beautiful, Rose.”
    She did not know what caught her off guard more. The sound of her name in his low, rumbling, masculine voice, or the way he had voiced the compliment. Genuine, but as if he believed she needed to hear it. As if she needed the reassurance.
    How had he known?
    “You are too kind,” she demurred, falling back on the expected response. She made to lean back, to put distance between them once again, but his grip on her hand remained light and secure. Holding her to him.
    “It’s not a kindness, it’s the truth. You are beautiful.”
    Countless men had spoken those words to her. They had waxed eloquently and some not-so-eloquently on her fine features and the curves of her body. She had smiled and murmured her thanks, but their empty words had slid over her with no effect.
    Never had a man made her feel beautiful.
    Until