Free Devil's Mistress by Heather Graham Page B

coveted mistress.
    Would this fascination last forever? Or would he find, even now, his passions rising for another voluptuous woman?
    Men were not sworn to be loyal to their mistresses.
    She is a witch,
he thought again with a smile as he looked upon her.
So exquisite …
    She inhaled and exhaled with a slight shuddering sob. Sloan bent nearer, but saw that she still slept. He knelt beside her and unlaced her shoes, then carefully slid her stockings from her shapely legs, feeling the heat rise in him as he performed the simple service. Still she did not awaken, and he realized how sorely exhausted she must be. The compassion she brought forth from him worked well to dampen the fires the touch of her created, but he was determined still to undress her for her comfort. Therefore he worked carefully upon her gown hooks without moving her, then lifted her into his arms to attempt to lift the fabric over her head. The muddied gown he cast haphazardly to the floor, making a mental note to purchase her some clothing. They would have to dock somewhere along the English coast—probably at Liverpool—before sailing to Holland. He could shop for her then.
    She was slumped against him still, and he tenderly adjusted her weight to wrest her shift from her. It was then that she awoke, her huge blue eyes reflections of dazed alarm in the dimness, her fists instantly flailing against him.
    “I am not a witch! Leave me! Leave me! Before God most holy, I am not a witch!”
    She pounded against Sloan’s bare chest, causing little harm, but one of her blows caught him well in the chin, causing his mouth to bleed where his tooth caught against his inner lip. Grimacing with a bit of surprise at the extent of her power, he secured her wrists and held them tight over her head, breaking, still gently, into her wild speech. “Shhh! You are not a witch, and no man will harm you! Shhh … It is all right, everything is all right.”
    The wide, terrified alarm slowly faded from her eyes, but still she surveyed him. “You …” she whispered, and it was not with pleasure that she did so.
    “Aye, me,” he agreed, with a wry bite to his words.
    “Treveryan, let me be!” she ordered with quiet fury.
    Sloan became keenly aware that she was naked now, as was he. Each of her tense gasps for breath pressed the hard peaks of her breasts more temptingly to his chest; her slightest movement was a brand of her body against his own. To his vast annoyance he found his own resolve faltering; against his will intense desire took hold of his body.
    “I’ve every intention of letting you be,” he informed her irritably, further annoyed by the flickering of her lustrous lashes, which signified all too clearly her knowledge of his arousal, her fear that he could not wield control over his own body as he lay with his weight sprawled over hers. “I am but trying to allow you to sleep in comfort,” he informed her, scowling darkly.
    “If you wish to grant me comfort,” she snapped, “leave.”
    Sloan took a perverse pleasure in the slight tremor that touched her voice. Damn her! They might have been strangers.
    “Sorry—this is my cabin.”
    “Oh,” she said. “Well, then, I shall be glad to leave.”
    To Brianna’s vast surprise she was instantly lifted from beneath him and set indecorously upon her feet beside the bunk. Sloan Treveryan surveyed her with idle interest as he stretched his length over his bed, lacing his fingers behind his head comfortably. “My crew will love you,” he told her dryly.
    Brianna stared at him with uncertainty for a moment, but then her anger exploded like cannon shot within her head. She was instinctively tempted to cover what part of her nakedness she could with floundering hands as he watched her so casually, but she resisted the foolish temptation to reach furiously for her discarded shift, crumpled at the foot of the bed.
    Dignity, she reminded herself firmly. He had taken her unawares but now she was ready to