Free In The Prince's Bed by Sabrina Jeffries Page A

all, gleefully stokingSydney’s anger by flirting with Katherine.
    Her cheeks warmed, and she cursed under her breath. A pox on that man for kissing her and throwing everything into a muddle. Hadn’t she learned anything from Papa’s naughty book? Clearly, she hadn’t learned enough yet to hold her own with the quick-witted earl. It would behoove her to remind herself of what he was.
    Opening the bottom desk drawer, she drew Papa’s wicked chapbook from its hiding place. She read the cheap-looking pamphlet merely to gain knowledge about men, of course. How else could a young lady learn all the ways a rake tempted a woman to sin? As Alec had said last night, knowledge was the best defense.
    Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html Glancing around to be sure she was alone—not that Mama would ever venture in here to do any work—she flipped open the book. Then blushed as one of the naughty pictures in the back met her gaze. The first time she’d seen the naked figures in contorted poses, she’d briefly thought them pictures of Greeksport. After all, the Greeks had performed their sports naked, and the captions—things like “A Wild Ride” and “The Sideward Thrust”—had sounded vaguely athletic. Then she’d stumbled across “The Wheelbarrow,” the very print she was looking at now. A man held a woman by her ankles as she held on to a wheel. It looked sportlike enough—as if he were pushing her along, perhaps in a race, with a big stick coming out from between his legs. But a closer look revealed it wasn’t a stick. And the couple clearly had no interest in athletics. She probably should have thrown the book away when she’d realized what the pictures were, but they’d been too fascinating to ignore. Especially when her knowledge of that area of life had been limited to what she’d gleaned from watching horses and sheep on the estate. Now she knew more—a lot more. But she wondered, why use such… well… odd positions for lovemaking? Some of them looked downright painful. Like the one where the woman put her ankles on a man’s shoulders— how did a woman get her legs up so high, anyway? Then there was this next one… but wait, it made more sense today. Perhaps a man would indeed want to put his tongue down there . Perhaps the woman would even enjoy it. Katherine had certainly enjoyed having Alec’s tongue in her own mouth last night; it had made her feel hot all over. Apparently men liked putting their tongues in certain places, and women liked having them put there. If she were to judge from these pictures, though, tongues weren’t the only things men liked to stick into women. But she wasn’t entirely convinced that the woman would like having that… that staff stuck into her.
    Especially when it was as large as this one in the picture. She turned the book to the side and peered at it. Surely this was an exaggeration… like the woman’s breasts, which were big as cantaloupes and not at all like Katherine’s own decidedly modest ones.
    But if the book wasn’t meant to be realistic, then why had Papa bought it in the first place? Or was it just another of his wicked curiosities, like the opera dancer Mama had accused him of toying with out of pure mischief?
    Katherine winced, remembering that particular argument, after which she’d had to explain to her sisters what a blowsy slut was. Mama had never been very discreet, but after Grandfather died, any discretion she’d possessed had flown right out the window. Without the influence of her father, Mama felt free to be her natural self. Which unfortunately meant that no subject was too private to air before her children. Realizing she was still staring at the picture of the man with his tongue in a naughty place, Katherine turned the pages swiftly back to the text. At least the book wasn’t all wicked. Like this chapter on gifts, about how a man should soften a woman’s resistance with jewels and such.