The Forbidden Lord Read Online Free PDF Page B

thin shaft of moonlight played over his stark features, highlighting the carved planes of his cheekbones and nose.
    Her hands still gripped his lapels, but now that he was looking at her as if in a state of shock, she became painfully aware of their scandalous position. Embarrassed, she released his cutaway and turned her head.
    He spoke in a tortured voice. “My God. I had no idea how sweet one kiss could be.”
    Sweet? It was magical! So why was he staring at her as if she were a Jezebel?
    Uttering a low curse, he dragged himself off her and threw himself into the opposite seat. “What the devil was I doing? I must have lost my infernal mind.”
    Ashamed by his words, she sat up and tried to straighten her clothing. Never had she felt so small. It had been so delightful, she hadn’t stopped to think how mundane such kisses were to him. Even with her poverty of experience, she recognized the wealth of his. No doubt he found her kisses painfully pathetic.
    “I’m sorry I became so carried away,” he said in a stiff voice. “I had no right to take advantage of the situation.”
    “Please, it doesn’t matter.” Tears pooled in her eyes. Now he was trying to be kind, curse him.
    “But it does matter. You’re not the sort of woman…I mean—”
    “I’m not your usual preference,” she whispered in utter mortification. “Yes, I know.”
    “That’s not what I mean. Let’s just say that your sort of woman is forbidden to me, all right?”
    That wasn’t true, she thought. He could involve himself with anyone if he truly wished. But he wouldn’t. An earl with a nobody like her? It was unthinkable. She wasn’t forbidden to him. But he was most certainly forbidden to her.
    Jordan watched her, trying futilely to gather his scattered wits. Judging from her hurt expression, he was saying this all wrong. No doubt she’d expected him to swear his undying love. That was precisely why he avoided virginal, respectable women.
    Experience had always been paramount in his encounters with women. A lusty woman whom he could forget as quickly as she forgot him—that was all he’d aimed for in a lover. He knew better than anyone that seducing virgins was a dangerous sport.
    But with Emily…Good God, he could still taste her on his lips, apples and cream and a hint of champagne. And when she’d parted her lips for him…He sprang to life just thinking of it. Lust raged through him, tearing down the barriers of sense and reason. Even now, he wanted to toss her down on the seat and bury himself inside her. And he couldn’t.
    He felt like a child who couldn’t get his fill of sweets, even though he knew they would make him ill. Her lavender scent filled the carriage, enticing him even further. He wanted to taste her, all of her, to strip the clothes from her and press his mouth against every inch of her pale, delicatebody. The damned hunger—He clenched his jaw. It was so intense, it hurt.
    “Look here, Emily—” he began, wondering how to explain his lapse in judgment.
    “Please don’t say any more. It’s all right. I…I suppose the full moon affected…both of us.”
    “Yes—the full moon.”
    It was as good an explanation for complete insanity as any other. Only complete insanity could make him lose control. And for a prim little rector’s daughter!
    A prim little rector’s daughter who might end up his wife if he weren’t careful. He tightened his jaw as he glanced out the window. Pray heaven no one was in the garden now. Marriage to Emily Fairchild would be sheer disaster. She barely knew him and couldn’t hope to be happy with him. She would chafe at a forced marriage. Being a starry-eyed innocent, she would want more from him than he could give. Before long, they’d be locked in the same kind of disastrous battle that had ruined his parents’ marriage and destroyed his mother’s life.
    A memory flashed before him, of his mother screaming in his face that he was the reason she couldn’t have fun, the