Free Reese's Bride by Kat Martin Page B

closely she could feel his powerful erection pressing against her. She should have been repulsed but she wasn’t. His body was lean and fit, his chest wide and hard, and the feel of his arms around her made her knees feel weak.
    She forced herself to pull away. “You don’t…don’t even like me.”
    He shrugged those broad shoulders. “Like has little to do with desire.” He leaned toward her, bent his dark head and kissed the place below her ear, and her stomach quivered.
    “It’s obvious the attraction between us remains,” he went on. “You’re a widow. We could please each other, Elizabeth.”
    She moved a little away, desperate to save herself. He didn’t like her, but he desired her. He was a man, after all, no different from any other. “I’m not…not interested in some illicit affair. I have a son to consider. And I refuse to be the victim of another man’s lust.”
    One of his sleek black eyebrows went up. “That’s all there was? Edmund and his lust?”
    Tears burned behind her eyes. She blinked them away before he could see. “I don’t want to think about it. Please, Reese…”
    At the sound of his name and the plea in her voice, he straightened. He studied her a moment and she wished she knew what he was thinking.
    “All right, if that is the way you want it. Just remember, the offer remains open. Think about it, Elizabeth. I can give you the pleasure he couldn’t.”
    She only shook her head. She enjoyed Reese’s kisses, the featherlight touches that made her feel like the womanshe had once been, but the thought of making love was utterly unbearable.
    “I—I’ll be leaving here soon,” she said. “I haven’t got the arrangements entirely worked out, but I’m certain I’ll be able to see it done very shortly.”
    Reese said nothing.
    Elizabeth moistened her lips. “Good night, my lord.” His blue eyes darkened for an instant, before she turned away. Elizabeth hurried out of the drawing room, headed upstairs. She couldn’t wait to reach her bedroom.
    And she couldn’t understand why Reese’s offer made the blood pump so furiously through her veins.
     
    Reese paced the floor of his bedroom. The scene in the withdrawing room had been completely unplanned. But sometime during the course of the evening, watching Elizabeth beneath the glow of the candles, admiring the gleam of her raven hair, the pale smoothness of her skin, the subtle rise and fall of her breasts, desire had begun to burn inside him, along with the notion of having her in his bed.
    He kept thinking of the kisses they had shared, remembering the way she had responded. He wanted her and apparently she wanted him.
    He owed her nothing.
    If he wanted her, why shouldn’t he have her?
    Discovering how little she knew of passion made his desire for her even greater. Clearly, Edmund Holloway had been an inept lover. The sort of husband who took his pleasure and gave nothing in return. As Reese looked back on the kiss in the music room, he had sensed an innocence he hadn’t expected. It was there in her untutored kisses tonight.
    He could teach her, give her the pleasure she had missed in the course of her marriage. And in doing so, relieve his need for a woman, unsatisfied since his arrival at Briarwood.
    In a way, taking Elizabeth as his temporary mistress would be gaining an odd sort of revenge. He didn’t love her. Not anymore. But he desired her. More, perhaps, because he’d had her only once and had never gotten his fill.
    He wanted her and she wanted him and only Elizabeth’s conscience stood in the way.
    A hard smile lifted the corners of his mouth. Considering the ease with which she had jilted him for another man, whatever minor amount of conscience she possessed shouldn’t be much of a problem.
    Shrugging out of his coat, Reese tossed it onto the bed. His leg throbbed as he walked over to the bellpull to summon Timothy and began to plan his strategy. He’d been an officer in the army. He knew how to mount