Free A Fresh Perspective, A Regency Romance by Elisabeth Fairchild Page A

the beat of her heart in his palm.
    “Laura. You must call me Laura if you mean to touch upon the pain of my loneliness, Reed. May I call you Reed though we barely know one another?”
    He nodded, unable to speak. Her behavior, while undeniably stimulating, was unexpected in a lady. He had been approached by whores with more subtlety in Paris. He had not been at liberty to take advantage of their offers with Moffit as chaperone. What was he to do now, with a young lady of quality offering herself up to him no sooner than they met? Was this the way his mother behaved with her tutors? The idea sickened him. He made a move away from her.
    “I should like to know you better.” She clasped his hand firmly to her breast. “Much better. I should like for us to. . .” Her eyes, no longer bored, searched his as she gently guided his hand, that he might cup the soft swell of her breast. “Oh, yes!” She cried when he touched upon her nipple, which hardened beneath his fingertips. “Will you chase away my pain, Reed? I feel so very empty inside. Empty and lonely. Do you know what it is like to be lonely, Reed, desperately lonely? Do you ache with it, as I do?”
    He groaned, unable to deny the ache she had roused in him. That she should so swiftly recognize his need, that she should freely offer herself out of a need to assuage a loneliness that would seem to equal his own, drew him to her as much as the undisguised hunger in her eyes and the soft heat of her skin.
    “Come. Kiss me, dearest Reed. Together we will fill the emptiness within and relieve our every ache.”
    It took every ounce of strength within him to refuse her. “My dear Miss Frost.” He extricated his hand from its happy nest. “As tempted as I am to conduct myself otherwise, I cannot take advantage of your loneliness when you have just tumbled down a hill and may not be in complete control of all your faculties.”
    It was rather lucky he stood back from her in that moment, for none other than the lady’s brother called down to them in that very instant. “Halloo! So this is where the two of you have gotten off to.”
    Heat rose in Reed’s neck and face as he waved Frost down to them. “Yes. Your sister has taken a tumble.”
    “With you, dear boy, or without you?”
    “She has come to no injury you will be pleased to hear.”
    “Has he the right of it, pet? Anything broken I should know about?”
    “Just my pride,” she said petulantly. “Reed could find nothing wrong with me.” There was a trace of disappointment in the pronouncement.
    “Nothing?” he laughed. “We are all flawed, Reed, even my dearest sister. Perhaps you require a closer look.”
    “A closer look could not be had,” she snapped.
    Reed coughed, surprised she touched so close to the truth of the matter.
    She went on. “He is, Richard, too much of a gentleman to point out the unwelcome truth if he has recognized any weakness in me.”
    “A gentleman indeed, to see that no harm should come to you under such provoking conditions.” Frost slapped Reed companionably on the shoulder. “Your button requires attention, my pet,” he gestured at Laura’s gaping bodice.
    “So it does.” She glanced at Reed with a flash of the interest she had shown in him earlier as she languidly attended to the button.
     
    Megan looked into the beautifully soulful brown eyes of Giovanni Giamarco as he knelt beside her and understood why most women succumbed to his charm without hesitation. He looked at one as if he could remove every stitch of one’s clothing through strength of sight alone. And in looking, he seemed completely pleased by what he saw. The intensity and familiarity of such a regard proved undeniably exhilarating.
    “Alone at last, carra mia ,” he said sweetly in his deeply resonant voice. “Long have I longed for just such a private moment with you.”
    The man was undeniably handsome. He spoke with a practiced earnestness that was almost, if not quite, believable. Why