Free To Wed a Wild Lord by Sabrina Jeffries Page B

him, shoving him away. “That’s absurd. How could I possibly be curious about a . . . a scoundrel with your reputation?”
    “Because you want to know how I got that reputation. If it’s deserved. If I really do make women ‘swoon’ in my bed.”
    Her jaw dropped. He should not be saying things like that to her. And she should definitely not be letting them make her pulse race and her hands grow clammy. What was wrong with her?
    “I tell you what,” he rasped, bending his head toward her. “Why don’t I satisfy a bit of your curiosity?” He covered her mouth with his.
    She froze at the intimate assault. How appalling. How unacceptable.
    How intoxicating. His lips moved over hers with the surety of a man who’d kissed many women. An instant thrill swept down her spine that did the most delicious things to her insides.
    She could feel her mouth soften beneath his, feel her breath stutter against his lips, feel her blood race rampantly through her veins. This was wrong, so wrong. And it felt completely and utterly right.
    “Ah, vixen,” he whispered against her lips. “What a kissable mouth you have.”
    Did she? No man had ever kissed her before.
    “Lord Gabriel, I really don’t think—”
    “Gabe,” he murmured. “My friends call me Gabe.”
    “I’m not your friend.”
    “You’re right. You’re something more . . . intimate. So call me Gabriel. Hardly anyone does. Or better yet, call me ‘darling.’ No one ever calls me that, sweetheart.” Before she could balk at that effrontery, he took her lips again.
    But this time his lips were firmer, hotter. He pulled her flush against him and opened his mouth over hers, coaxing it open so he could plunge his tongue inside.
    Lord have mercy on her soul. What was that ? She’d never imagined . . .
    It was glorious. He coaxed her tongue to twine with his, then he played with it. Oh, how he played. His mouth consumed hers, and his tongue drove inside her with slow, silky strokes that made her want things, need things she didn’t understand.
    Before she knew it, he’d pressed her against the wall between two stalls, his lips seducing hers. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.
    She laid her hands on his chest, meaning to push him back, but her fingers curled themselves into his waistcoat like little traitors.
    Within moments, the whole world narrowed to this man with his mouth on hers and his hands roaming up and down her ribs and her waist, his thumbs brushing the undersides of her breasts as they swept—
    A sudden sharp pain in her arm made her cry out against his mouth and shove him away. “What the dickens?”
    “Jacky Boy!” he growled at the pony that had just nipped her. “None of that!”
    She turned her head to look at the pony whose lips were drawn back to show his teeth. If ever a beast could be said to glare, this one was doing so.
    Gabriel examined her arm with great concern. Seeing that the bite hadn’t even cut through the cloth, he turned to the pony. “You know better, lad,” he scolded. “You can’t go around biting ladies.”
    The pony nudged Gabriel with his head, shoving in between them as if to separate them.
    Stifling a laugh, Virginia moved out of range. Gabriel might call it “lad,” but the aging pony was clearly well beyond its prime. The poor thing probably had only a few more years left in him. And a decided attachment to his owner.
    Thank heaven. She’d been on the verge of doing goodness knows what.
    “I’m sorry,” Gabriel said. “Jacky Boy was the first mount I ever owned, so he tends to be possessive. He’s jealous of anyone I show attention to. He’s already annoyed by Flying Jane’s arrival in the stable, so he took it out on you.”
    “He has no reason to be jealous of me,” she said.
    Gabriel’s eyes darkened as he came toward her. “He most certainly does.” His gaze swept down her body with such heat that her breathing quickened again. “But he’ll have to get used to it.”
    The