Free Let Me Love You by Mary Wine Page A

around her knickers, pain burned up her arms. Dropping her knickers she looked at her hands. Dark splinters decorated her palms and fingers. The skin had swelled up around the little daggers. Clinging to dock last night hadn’t been without its price. However she was still breathing, so she welcomed the little shards of wood as a testimony to her will to survive.
    The possibility of being completely wiped out, right down to her shoes was too frustrating to contemplate. Better to wait until she was staring at the burned-out shell of her father’s mill before thinking the worst. Hope might not be much, but it sure beat desolation. At least the grinding stone couldn’t burn. The waterwheel that powered it was another matter too grim to entertain until she was forced to. Replacing that would mean taking out a second mortgage against the land note to pay a carpenter. That would saddle her with two notes to pay and only her to earn money. It was a vicious circle. She couldn’t mill without a waterwheel and she couldn’t build one herself.
    The stove was glowing with heat, but gooseflesh raced along her limbs as she picked her knickers back up. Shimmying into the garment, she ignored the complaint from her splinters long enough to cover her nudity. Her face turned red as she contemplated facing Sloan, but at least she would do it with her dress buttoned!
    Never mind that he knew exactly what she looked like and felt like beneath the worn calico. Her nipples tingled as her mind offered up a crystal clear recollection of the burst of pleasure he’d unleashed in her last night.
    “Oh, Brianna Spencer, you’re a shame.”
    Working the busk on the front of her corset, she kept glancing at the door. Turning, she placed her back towards it as she stepped into her petticoat. Wiggling her hips, she sent its hem towards her feet. The cotton was completely dry and felt cozy against her legs. After she’d fallen asleep, Sloan must have remained awake and hung her wet garments up. Her face remained hot as she pushed her arms into her dress sleeves. In spite of being innocent, she wasn’t ignorant as to just why Sloan hadn’t drifted off into slumber as she had.
    He hadn’t been satisfied.
    Her mother’s ghost was going to rise up and haunt her. Brianna felt the icy grip of moral retaliation grazing her shoulder as she looked around for something to brush her hair with. It was a tangled mess, half of her hairpins long gone. She picked out the remaining ones when she found a small mirror on the opposite side of the room. A large comb sat beside the porcelain basin beneath it. A thick length of leather hung on the wall as well as a razor. A shiver went down her spine as she gazed at the masculine items. There was something intimate about being in his private space. Certainly, she had toyed with the idea of marrying and sharing a home with a man, but that hadn’t prepared her for the pure rush of sensation that moved through her right then. A hint of vulnerability touched her body as she realized just how easy it was for Sloan to handle her. The surge of enjoyment that went along with it all confused her. As if a part of her liked being bent to a man’s will. It didn’t make much sense. But there was no denying she liked it. Lying to herself wouldn’t change the facts.
    She didn’t understand just what he’d managed to draw from her body last night. Another ripple of sensation moved over her, but this time it was deeper and shot down her spine to that spot between her thighs that he’d touched. She had never been much of a gossip, but a few rumors had made their way past her ears. She’d heard that some women enjoyed their marriages more than others. It didn’t make any sense and, somehow, she hadn’t felt comfortable asking her father about it. It seemed more like a question a daughter took to her mother. Maybe because only a woman knew a female’s body.
    Well, Sloan sure did know a thing or two as well…
    Pulling the comb