Free Some Like It Wicked by Teresa Medeiros

her might accidentally graze some even more wayward part of him.
    “Catriona?”

    “Hmmm?” she replied, halfway surprised that he had remembered her name.
    “Do you plan to stay under there all night?”
    Clinging to the last stitch of her dignity, if not her clothing, she sniffed. “Perhaps.”
    He tugged on the counterpane until her nose and eyes were exposed. She blinked up at him.
    “Would you like me to douse the lamp?” he asked.
    “No!” she exclaimed, her panic deepening at the prospect of sharing the darkness as well as her bed with him. She sat up, clutching the sheet to her breasts and shaking her hair out of her eyes. “I have a much better idea.”
    Within seconds, she had put her hands on every pillow and bolster she could reach. She plumped them up and began to build an impenetrable wall between them. When it was done, she could barely see over the top of it. She doubted Napoleon himself could have constructed such an impressive blockade.
    “I feel as if I’m back in Newgate,” Simon said, his voice muffled.
    “If my plan doesn’t work, you may very well be,” she reminded him, rolling over and presenting her back firmly to his side of the bed.
    With a long-suffering sigh, he settled back on his side of the makeshift barricade.
    Catriona closed her eyes. Despite her best efforts to relax and ignore him, she was still keenly aware of his presence. He no longer seemed to bear any kinship to the boy she had adored for so long. He was a stranger—as large and exotic and dangerous as an African tiger drowsing in the sun. An indefinably masculine scent wafted from his warm skin. It reminded her of melted toffee mingled with the bracing sea breezes at Brighton.
    She rolled restlessly to her back and glared up at the tester. She’d never done anything as scandalous as sleeping without her nightdress. There was something deliciously decadent about the way her naked limbs glided over the sheets, the way the crisp linen tickled her nipples and made them pucker. Something that made her want to stretch and purr like a contented cat.
    She flopped over to her other side and glared at the mountain of pillows, knowing that neither one of them would get so much as a wink of sleep on this night.
    A muffled snore reached her ears.
    Clutching the sheet to her bosom, she sat up and peered over the pillows. Simon’s eyes were closed, his mouth slightly open, his breathing deep and even. With his gilt-tipped lashes resting on his cheeks and a wayward strand of hair falling over his brow, he looked as innocent as a newborn babe. Or in his case a hellborn babe.
    The sheet had slid all the way down to his hipbones. Catriona chewed on her lower lip, fascinated against her will by the mysteries that lay beneath. Thanks to Aunt Margaret’s reticence, her knowledge of male anatomy had never progressed beyond what she had gleaned from the mating rituals of the tomcats and stallions in her uncle’s stables. What would Simon do if he awoke to find her lifting the sheet to steal a peek?
    All too afraid that she knew exactly what he would do, she settled back into the lonely nest she’d built for herself. He’d probably slept next to so many naked women in his lifetime that she was no more a distraction to him than if Robert the Bruce had been curled up against his leg.
    She sighed, abandoning all hope of rest. But before she knew it, the cozy rhythm of Simon’s snoring had lulled her into a sweet and dreamless sleep.

    ******************
    Simon awoke with a warm female body snuggled against his bare back and a raging erection. Although he was still more than half asleep, he knew exactly what to do with both. But before he could roll over and cover that warm female body with his own, seeking an oblivion even sweeter than sleep, he remembered exactly whose warm female body it was.
    His eyes flew open.
    Wondering if he was still dreaming, he lifted his head just enough to peer over his shoulder. No, there she was—Miss