Free Susan Johnson by Outlaw (Carre) Page B

raised his eyes to her face.
    “Let me hold you,” he said, his deep voice hushed. And he held out his hand.
    No man had ever said that to her before. She’d never been offered tenderness and comfort by a man. Like so many other young women, she’d been sold to the highest bidder—although marriage settlements couched the transaction in more palatable euphemisms.
    “I won’t hurt you,” Johnnie murmured, walking over and gently loosening her fingers from the saints’ heads bordering the chair rail.
    She believed him, despite the fact that his hand dwarfed hers when he enclosed it in his palm. He towered over her—a Border chieftain of renown, a freebooter in diamond buckles and courtly attire.
    “I’m not afraid of being hurt,” she quietly replied, her face lifted to his, the warmth of his hand surrounding hers. She smiled then, her green cat’s eyes gazing up at him from under a drift of lacy lashes. “I’m afraid of being forgotten.”
    He grinned, boyish and sweet, his ruffled dark hair framing his aquiline face, a small gold earring visible for the first time on his left ear as he brushed his hair back in an unconscious gesture. “I never forget.” He said it very plainly, the way a boy would assure his mother of some act of faith.
    She liked the simplicity of his reply. It reassured her … although she wondered for a cynical moment whether in her current state of desire she would have accepted any suave disclaimer.
    “You’re very gallant,” she said, and touched her free hand to the downy black silk of one brow. “I’ve beenwanting to do that,” she remarked, as direct as he and as simply.
    “It’s a start,” he noted, his grin widening so his fine white teeth showed in the dark bronze of his face. “What I’ve been wanting to do,” he went on, his voice a low murmur, his hand tightening on hers, “is see you lying on that bed.”
    Without pretense or coyness she said, “You have to stay the night then.” Imperious, she was setting the guidelines.
    Unknowingly, Elizabeth Graham was offering him paradise, but he controlled his exultation. Pulling her close in a fierce rush of pleasure, he whispered as his mouth touched hers, “My pleasure …”
    She tasted sweet as he’d imagined.
    His mouth, she thought with shameless joy, was resolutely twenty-five … and wonderful. He tasted deliciously of Rhenish wine, and when she told him so, he offered to pour her some.
    She refused, drunk already with uncontrollable desire.
    A fact he’d noted with a connoisseur’s eye for detail. She hadn’t had lovers, he could tell. And that knowledge brought his own urgent passion to the flash point.
    They didn’t wait the first time for languorous kisses and drawn-out foreplay. He had, in fact, to rush, for she said, breathless with passion, “I can’t wait,” while he was unclasping the closure at the neck of her fur-collared robe. Momentarily startled, he quickly improvised and, slipping his hands under her knees, lifted her into his arms.
    She clung to him as he carried her to the bed, covering his face with kisses, beside herself with desire, not caring if he thought her shameless. She’d never experienced the sheer physical splendor of youthful muscled strength, and the feel of him, powerful and hard against her body, intoxicated her, made her dizzy with longing.
    Reaching the bed in three lithe strides, Johnnie laid her on the crewel-worked coverlet and lace-trimmed pillows, following her down when she wouldn’t releaseher arms from his neck, kissing her while he gently extricated himself from her grasp.
    “I’m not going anywhere,” he murmured as she whimpered, frantic at her loss. “I’m here,” he soothed, “I’m staying.…” And he wondered at the degree of her deprivation during the years of her marriage.
    “Help me,” she whispered, flagrant in her need, beyond pride, humbled by her desire for this man who wouldn’t remember her next week. No longer caring, with her