This Wicked Gift Read Online Free PDF Page B

inner light. Her
appeal had as much to do with the innate trust she placed in those around her,
in the way she smiled and greeted everyone as if they were worthy of her
attention. If he took her, like this, he’d shatter her trust in the world. He
would show her that men were fiends at heart, that there was no forgiveness in
the world for sins committed by others.
    You don’t have to do this.
    But men were fiends. And there was no
forgiveness. He had never been granted any forgiveness.
    He didn’t have to do it, but he did it
anyway. He slid into her in one firm thrust, and it was every bit as awful—and
as good—as he’d imagined. It was wonderful, because she was sweet and hot and
tight about him.   It was
wonderful, because she was his, now, in the most primal sense. But it was
terrible, because he knew what he destroyed with that single thrust. Her hands
came involuntarily between them, and he tensed and stopped.
    “William.” She touched his shoulders
tentatively, as if he were the one who needed comfort. As if even his vile
penetration could not shake her absurd trust in the world. And
so he took her, thrusting into her. She clenched around him, the walls
of her passage tight around his erection. She brought her hips up to his. And
by God, that heat, that pulsing heat that wrapped around him, that cry she
gave—it couldn’t have been. She could not have come. But she had, and then he
was pumping into her, loosing his seed into her womb and crying out himself,
hoarsely.
    As his orgasm faded and his mind cleared
of lust, he realized what a despicable man he was. He’d taken her like an
animal. Oh, she’d let him—but what choice had he left her? He should have
stopped. He should have let her go. Instead, he’d been so intent on himself
that he hadn’t cared what she wanted at all. He was as sorry a specimen as had
ever been seen.
    He pulled out of her and sat on the edge
of the bed, his back to her.
    The mattress sagged as she rearranged her
weight. “William,” she said.
    He could not bring himself to turn around
and see what he’d done. Would her eyes reflect the
betrayal of trust?
    “William,” she said. “You must look at me.
I have something to tell you.”
    He knew already what a despicable
blackguard he was. He’d taken her virginity, and damn, he’d enjoyed it. But
everything had a price, and the price of William’s physical enjoyment would be
this: her cold censure, and a speech that he hoped
would cut him to ribbons. He deserved worse. And so he turned.
    There was no judgment in her eyes—just a
quiet, unfathomable serenity.
    “When I told you my brother was not yet
one-and-twenty,” she said, “I did not intend to engage your sympathies. I was
trying to point out that he is legally an infant. He is incapable of forming a
contract. That promissory note is unenforceable.”
    William’s mind went blank. Instead of
thoughts, his head seemed to fill with water from the bottom of a lake—chilled
liquid, dwelling where light could not filter.
    “You had nothing to coerce me with,” she
continued. “You could not have done. No magistrate would have compelled my brother
to pay the debt.”
    Her words skipped like stones over the
surface of his thoughts. Hadn’t he coerced her? He was sure he’d forced her
into his bed. He deserved her condemnation. Damn
it, he   wanted   it.
    Instead, he was as empty as the wick of a
candle that had just been extinguished. “Oh,” he said. That one bare word
didn’t seem enough, so he added another. “Well.” Other thoughts flitted through
his mind, but   they were also
single syllables, and rather the sort that could not be uttered in front of a
member of the gentler sex. Even if he had treated her in a
most ungentle manner.
    There was a vital difference between lust
and love. It had been lust—desperate lust for her body—that had brought him to
this point. Lust did not care about the loss of a woman’s virtue. Lust did not
care if a