Free Natchez Flame by Kat Martin Page A

don’t blaspheme.”
    When she took another step backward, Brendan felt a surge of guilt. He wanted to swear again, but didn’t.
    “Look, Priscilla, I tried to warn you. I’m a man, just like any other. I didn’t mean for that to happen, but maybe it’s good that it did. We’ve got three more days of travel before we reach Rancho Reina. If I didn’t feel so damned responsible for you, I’d probably try to bed you. With that in mind, I suggest you keep your distance. Now go back to sleep.”
    Priscilla just stared at him.
    “I was asleep, for Christ’s sake. I thought I was dreaming.”
    I thought so, too.
Sometime during the night, she must have snuggled up to him and he’d pulled her into his arms.
    Bending down, Priscilla dragged her bedroll several feet away from him. She lay back down, but she didn’t fall asleep. All she could think of were the strange sensations Brendan had stirred in her body. Her breast still felt heavy and achy, and the place between her legs throbbed and burned.
    Was this desire? She hadn’t believed she could feel such a thing; her aunt surely hadn’t. Aunt Maddie had been a spinster, a virgin till the day she died. The notion of a man’s organ penetrating her body had repelled her. Priscilla often wondered if that hadn’t been one of the reasons her aunt had never married.
    Priscilla had long ago resigned herself to that particular fate. She wanted children and she knew what it took to get them—not in detail, of course—awoman wasn’t allowed to know that until she married. She only knew that submitting to a man’s lust was essential to making a baby. But did a woman feel lust, too? She had certainly felt something.
    From beneath her lashes, Priscilla watched the rise and fall of Brendan’s muscular chest. As long as she’d been half asleep, sure the hot sensations were nothing more than an odd sort of fantasy, Priscilla had to admit she’d enjoyed them. She’d found herself moaning softly, and pressing her bosom into the warmth she’d discovered was Brendan’s palm.
    Merciful heaven, what a shock that had been!
    Priscilla shifted restlessly and fought to block the hot sensations that coursed through her veins every time she remembered the way he had touched her, molded her breast to his hand and made her ache for … What? she wondered.
    She looked again at the tall broad-shouldered man who had touched her so intimately. Could Stuart Egan make her feel that way? Part of her hoped so. The other part prayed he could not. Even as innocent as she was, instinctively she sensed there was some sort of power in what Brendan had done to her.
    Already it was difficult to keep her mind off him. Dear Lord, she didn’t want to give him any more hold on her than he already had.
    Priscilla awoke to the delicious aroma of steaming hot coffee. Brendan bent over her, extending a speckled blue tin cup.
    “Time to get up,” he said, handing her the coffee. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”
    Priscilla gratefully accepted the mug. “You shouldhave awakened me sooner. I could have made breakfast.”
    “I thought … after what happened—at the trading post, I mean—you could use a little extra sleep.”
    Priscilla blushed. It was the other “what happened” that worried her more.
    “About last night …,” he said, reading her thoughts.
    “It wasn’t really your fault. I’d rather we just forgot it.”
    Easier said than done
, Brendan thought. He recalled the painful hours he had spent before dawn, trying not to think of her slender curves, her ripe little bottom, the feel of her small upturned breasts. As she sat there sipping her coffee, his eyes traced the line of her thick dark braid, saw where it nestled against her bosom, and he had to turn away.
    “You’d better get dressed,” he said a little more gruffly than he meant to. One look at her in that damned cotton nightgown and his breeches fit way too snug. Three more days of this torture and even Patsy Jackson