Free Ravishing in Red by Madeline Hunter Page A

intended a brief kiss, to prove his point. Nothing more. That was what he told himself at least.
    She did not resist or fight. She merely stiffened for an instant of surprise, then softened under the kiss. Her body reacted as if the warmth of his arms banished a deep chill.
    Soft lips. Tentative and curious and artless. He did not require that she kiss him back. Everything he needed to know was spoken by her breaths and heartbeat and pliant acceptance.
    The kiss was not brief. One became two, then three. Desire’s compulsion took hold and only her innocence checked him. With another kind of woman, the usual kind, he would not have bothered with seduction, but it pleased him to tease her with lures and little pleasures, and note her astonished delight when his restrained caress moved over her back and sides.
    Hotter now. Flames. Images of the possibilities. Arguments for more. A war between body and mind such as he had not fought in years occurred, except there was no real contest in such things.
    His embrace encompassed her completely until her breasts and stomach pressed him and her tremors echoed into him. He closed his mouth on her neck’s pulse and listened to her bated gasps of pleasure. Their sounds sent him on a ruthless, determined climb toward satisfaction.
    He held her head so he could ravish her mouth, forgetting she was so innocent. Shock tensed through her before she submitted to the intimacy, but submit she did. Mindless now, picturing her naked above him, straddling him and releasing the cries that she now tried to swallow, he caressed more boldly until his hand smoothed over the softness of her breast.
    A cry escaped her then, a wondrous sound of female pleasure. Then another and another as he teased her hard nipple through the thin fabric of her garments.
    She was with him in the delirium now, bracing herself against him for balance, arching her back to encourage him. Scattered thoughts tried to form. He needed to take her away from here and find a place, anywhere, so they could have each other. He needed to—
    A howling, scorching pain suddenly blackened his mind. Then he saw red and a curse erupted out of him.
    His head and sight half-cleared. His upper left arm felt as if on fire. Miss Kelmsleigh stood five feet away, her hands covering her mouth in a portrait of horrified dismay.
    “I am sorry! I did not mean to hurt your arm,” she said desperately in a low rush. “When I heard the door, I just pushed to get free and . . .” She looked toward the garden fretfully. Feminine laughs and talk rode on the breeze toward them.
    Another pain joined the one in his arm. A much lower pain. “No matter. It is nothing.”
    “Are you sure? You appear very pale.”
    Undoubtedly. His body was giving him hell. She worried while he composed himself. It took a long minute.
    She calmed as she saw his progress. “It would have been horrible to be seen by Daphne and Celia like . . . like we were. I am sure that you understand. They burst from the house quite unexpectedly. Normally they do not leave the house at this hour, but work in the greenhouse.”
    He imagined a very pale woman treating herself to a turn in the sunlight. He would have to remember to express his gratitude to Mrs. Joyes someday.
    “We really should not have—It was very bad of you to . . .” Miss Kelmsleigh’s dismay had given way to a scold. He truly did not want to hear one right now.
    “Of course we should have,” he growled. “We wanted to, so we should have, so we did. And stop pretending that I am forcing you to kiss me.”
    If slowly ebbing pain did not preoccupy him, he would have been less blunt. As it was, he only encouraged Miss Kelmsleigh to see matters in the worst light.
    She strode up the path toward the house. “I see that you are as cruel as I thought. Your goal is to humiliate me, to what purpose I do not know.”
    He trailed her and barely resisted grabbing her again, to prove he was right. “I succumbed to an impulse,