Untamed Read Online Free PDF

nose, he leaned forward.
    Like an oyster opening to reveal the pearl sheltered within, the clutch of evening-attired “penguins” parted, bringing their prize into view. Lady Katherine Lindsey peered out from her sanctum and smothered a yawn behind her slender gloved hand.
    The first thing that struck him was how very tiny she was. Barely reaching the shoulders of the men ranged about her, she was also slight as a fairy. Following on that thought was that she was far prettier than her picture. Harry might be one of the best photographic portraitists in London, but the photograph he’d taken didn’t begin to do her justice. But then, how could an image imprinted on paper and tinted by hand begin to capture the creaminess of that pale oval face; the wicked, willful flash of those dark eyes; and the wonderful mobility of her lush mouth, berry ripe and fashioned for kissing? The only conceivable flaw he could find was her nose. Seen full face, it was thin about the bridge and slightly longish. An aristocrat’s nose, no doubt it tended to point north, and yet the delicate pinkish tip begged to be tweaked—and kissed.
    She must have sensed him staring. Shifting to the side, she cast her gaze over one gentleman’s shoulder and their eyes met. The jolt of sexual awareness struck like a thunderbolt splitting a placid springtime sky, the tingling heat sliding down his spine and settling in his cock. Suddenly glad of the concealing crush, he lifted his champagne flute in silent salute and then knocked back a sip. Warm as piss, just as he’d known it would be, and flat, too. Holding her eye, he choked down the froth and then made a deliberately droll face.
    The corners of her mouth lifted ever so slightly up-wards, affording him a flash of straight white teeth and two devilish dimples bracketing her bottom lip. As if remembering herself, she feigned a yawn and covered her hand over her mouth once more, only this time Rourke knew it wasn’t boredom she sought to smother. It was a chuckle.
    “I think she fancies you, mate.” Harry nudged him in the ribs, but Rourke ignored him, refusing to be distracted.
    Emboldened, he sent his gaze on a lazy downward glide, the shadowed hollow of her slender throat inviting mouths and tongues to linger. Her cream-colored gown was of obvious quality though simple in style, the décolletage low but not indecently so, just low enough to allow a teasing glimpse of cleavage. Elbow-high white satin opera gloves sheathed arms that were both slender and shapely.
    Imagining those lovely arms wrapping about his neck as he peeled away her gown, he asked, “What’s she like?”
    He sensed Harry shrug. “She has a reputation as a shrew, and honestly earned from what I hear, though she’s civil enough to me. Always keeps her pose without any fuss or fidgeting, though she’s not much of a talker. Brings her younger sister along to our sittings, no doubt to keep things on the up and up, not that she need bother.”
    Irrational jealousy caused Rourke to look away at last. He stole a sideways glance at the handsome photographer, but his friend’s attention was fixed not on Lady Katherine, but instead on a tall, curvy brunette sipping champagne and chatting to several goggle-eyed gentlemen on the far side of the room. Rourke recalled Harry earlier introducing her as Caledonia Rivers, not a PB, but one of his commissioned portraiture subjects, as well as a leader in the women’s suffrage movement.
    Harry scraped a gloved hand through his silver-blond hair and scowled. “She’s off-limits, Rourke.”
    Ordinarily Rourke’s tastes ran to buxom women with big breasts and long legs. His former mistress, Felicity, was as tall as he, as well as a proper armful. Striking though Miss Rivers was, his thoughts kept turning back to the pocket-sized Venus on the other side of the room.
    Happy to have his handsome friend’s interest elsewhere engaged, he clapped Harry on the shoulder. “Dinna fash, man. Bonny as