The Sea Rose Read Online Free PDF

“I won’t answer it.”
    “ Oh dear,” his tone
mocked. “Pirate Rules state you must face a penalty
then.”
     
     
    Her eyebrows flew up, but she really
didn’t want to answer the question. “What kind of penalty?” she
asked, with visions of walking planks and other “piratey”
punishments swirling in her head.
    Her pirate leaned back in the chair,
and looked at her in contemplation, as if he debated the form of
punishment and its severity. “I think a kiss will do.”
    Roselyn blanched, but she didn’t want
him to know that she wasn’t in love with Rupert. Did it really
matter? Women got married because they had no skills, no money of
their own and no way to live without a man. Love had nothing to do
with it. But somehow, she thought the pirate would capitalize on
that knowledge. She was engaged to Rupert because her father told
her she was and, being a dutiful daughter, she had never offered an
argument.
    She seriously considered the prospect
of a kiss. The fact that she thought about it at all was surely due
to all the wine she’d consumed. Otherwise, she had no excuse for
such wanton thoughts. But as she mulled over the punishment, her
eyes were drawn to his mouth and his mustache, and her gaze settled
there for a moment.
    “ One kiss? That’s all?”
she asked, wanting to clarify the terms of the
punishment.
    “ Only one,” he smiled at
her silkily, “unless you refuse to answer another question. Or, of
course, unless you like it so much that you want
another.”
    In her haughtiest manner, she told
him, “I am sure one will be sufficient.”
    When Jack stood from his chair, she
did the same. He took a step towards her, and she thought he looked
even more wolfish than before. She held her ground though, and he
strode the remaining two steps until he stood directly in front of
her with only inches between them. Roselyn closed her eyes and
puckered her lips.
    He chuckled, a deep rumbling Roselyn
felt in her stomach and, in an unexpected development, even
lower.
    Jack brought a hand to her face and
she felt him brush a lock of hair from her cheek and tuck it behind
her ear. He circled one finger from her ear along her jaw line
underneath her chin, and then gently nudged her chin so that her
face tilted up.
    His thumb strayed to her mouth, and he
gently rubbed the pad of it along her bottom lip. The unexpected
move surprised her and, when she parted her lips in bemusement, he
lowered his head and took her mouth with his. His lips were warm
and soft and the feeling they invoked was gentle and dear. Without
moving his lips from hers, he gently caressed her mouth and stroked
her bottom lip with his tongue. She tensed briefly at the
unexpectedness of the sensation but then slipped back into a
relaxed, languid stance. He intensified the kiss by degrees and
eventually his tongue slipped into her mouth and the caress
deepened. Both hands cradled her face and he deftly altered the
angle of her head to accommodate his preference.
    Roselyn’s initial
trepidation soon gave way to interest and then she wasn’t thinking
anymore at all. So this is a
kiss.
    The simple peck on the lips she’d
received from Rupert when they were engaged, and then again when he
left on his mission, shouldn’t even have been called by the same
name as this kiss. She had felt absolutely nothing when her fiancé
kissed her.
    Handsome Jack’s kiss was a
revelation.
     
     
    She tasted of wine and innocence; a
heady mix. He found himself deepening the kiss faster than he
thought she would accept, but it was almost beyond his control. He
had been amused when she’d lifted her face to him with the childish
expression of a kiss: her lips puckered and her eyes squeezed shut.
He’d chuckled, but as soon as their lips met, he no longer found
anything about the kiss amusing.
    The lovely girl in his arms made a
soft mewling sound, and he altered the angle of his mouth to
plunder it completely. What treasures she held, this sweet Rose.