Free Devil's Bargain by Jade Lee Page B

me!”
    She couldn’t. She hadn’t. But to herself? Perhaps. She had been lying there, pretending that he did not frighten her. That his mere presence did not fill her with thoughts and feelings clashing within.
    Then he had spoken to her, not in a whisper but in low tones. It was hard to describe his voice, and her thoughts wandered around it, trying to put into words what she had felt more than heard. His voice was not deep, like her father’s. There was no holy zeal behind his words, no push of air from huge lungs that could fill the rafters of a church.
    And yet when he spoke she heard him as no other. The sound filled not the room but her soul, slipping inside until she seemed to thrum with the tenor of his voice, rising and falling with the cadence of his words.
    “Do you feel me?”
    She had felt him. She had felt every part of him, as if his hands had indeed been all over her body. He spoke of heat, and the touch of her bedclothes against her skin had been like a fire.
    He had whispered about tingling and her hands had clenched the linen as the fine hairs on her brow, her face, her entire body had risen in awareness.
    Then he had asked about her breasts. She had nearly cried out as suddenly her body changed. Her father had told her breasts were sinful, gifts from the devil to tempt man. She had not listened. Her breasts were functional, serviceable, set there to feed babies. They were no more sinful than her legs or her hands or even her nose.
    But not now. Not in her bed, with him poised above her. With him, her breasts became hungry things, aching for something. Anything. Him.
    He had not touched them, and yet she felt as if they had been changed, molded somehow.
    She was in his bed now, surrounded by his massive pillows, his dark sheets, and his heady scent. It had taken her a moment to gain enough courage to mount the massive edifice. But then she had heard a noise and, fearful that he was following her, had sought the dubious safety of his bed.
    Somewhat like jumping from the frying pan into the fire, she thought ruefully. But there was no helpfor it. She was here now. In his bed. Surrounded by his presence, even if he was not with her in actuality. And she thought about her breasts.
    “Your skin seems to tingle, your breasts are heavy and tight.”
    She raised her hand, lifting it almost without thought. Then slowly she acted, her every movement fraught with tension. But the urge was undeniable.
    The bedsheet was pulled up to her chin, pressed tight against her neck as if that would somehow protect her from her wayward thoughts. But it could not. It did not. And so she pushed the sheet down, drawing it slowly to her waist until she felt its weight upon her belly.
    She touched her nightrail. The fabric was soft from long use, the white dimmed to a gentle gray.
    “Tomorrow you will burn it or I will tear it off your body myself.”
    He could not truly have meant that, she told herself. But in her heart she knew he meant every word. Tomorrow night she would sleep naked.
    She touched the tiny buttons at her neck. She turned them beneath her fingers, feeling their pebbly weight, the tiny tug as she pulled the fabric away from her skin. She would burn this gown tomorrow. She would not even save the buttons, for they were too old and too worn to be used again.
    Then she felt a button press into her neck as she slipped it free. The first button of her nightrail was undone. It was warm in the viscount’s room, the air close and thick. Brushing the skin of her neck, she felt perspiration make her fingers slick.
    A second button slipped free.
    Once, as a child, she had looked long and hard at a man’s neck. She had noted the bump of his Adam’s apple, seeing the bulge as firm, hard, commanding. She touched her own neck now, seeking that same bump and exploring its contours with her fingers. Hers was small by comparison. Compressed. Withdrawn.
    Buttons number three and four fell away.
    She could now feel the hard