Free Her Every Pleasure by Gaelen Foley Page A

her enemies out on the road, she knew she hadn’t a prayer.
    All the same, she was in a wholly different kind of danger if she stayed.
    The autumn chill filled her lungs, and as Sophia ran down the drive, its coolness gradually helped to clear her head.
    Where did she really think she was going to go?
    Oh, this was a disaster.
    She was stuck in the middle of nowhere with a man she could barely resist.
    Gabriel Knight turned her world upside down. She had never felt such things. Her desire for him was dangerous.
    Both of them had nearly lost control.
    Nearing the old barn where she had slept last night, Sophia dropped back to a fast walk, her chest heaving. Her knees still felt wobbly. Twilight was deepening by the minute to a clear, cool blackness, but the white-gold moon illuminated the lonely drive before her.
    She glanced around uneasily in the gathering darkness, wondering where in blazes her bodyguards were. She would have thought they’d have found her by now.
    Timo particularly had an excellent sense of direction, and after all, she had only gone a few miles.
    Maybe something had gone disastrously wrong.
    Oh, God.
Sophia stopped walking and looked up at the moon as her vision blurred with frightened tears.
    All day, she had managed to ignore her gnawing worries, keeping busy with Mrs. Moss’s endless list of chores, but now, alone, defenseless, not sure where to go, and feeling all too vulnerable, her fears began to get the best of her. The tears flooded into her eyes.
    Leon! Where are you?
    She had never been without him for so long before. Since childhood, he had been her rock.
    What if her masked enemies had wiped out her whole entourage the way that different foes had wiped out her family over the years?
    What if her bodyguards
weren’t
coming?
    What if they all were dead?
             
    Nothing had been taken.
    At first Gabriel had thought there must be some mistake.
    Moments ago, the bang of the front door had jolted him, helping to clear the fog of lust in his brain. Slamming the heel of his hand angrily on the doorframe to vent his frustration, he had stalked over to his traveling trunk with a scowl, where a quick inventory of its contents soon revealed the startling truth.
    All his belongings were there, confirming Sophia’s claim of innocence.
    With a curse, he threw off his towel and quickly pulled on some clothes. The realization that he had accused her unjustly was enough to turn his previous anger at her right around at himself.
    Worse, he realized in hindsight that, harlot or no, he had terrified her with his randy insistence, so much so that, for all her pluck, she had seen fit to run for her bloody life.
    Damn it, that was not the kind of man he was! He had never
demanded
sex from any woman—he’d never had to—and he was not about to start now. Furious at himself, he stood and hastened to button up his trousers, but winced at the denial as he pushed his long-starved cock down into its proper position to the right. What was the matter with him, anyway? A gentleman did not grope his domestics, no matter what sort of damned sultry temptresses they were. He had given Sophia his word that she would be safe here, that she would not be used, and whatever his faults, Gabriel never broke his word.
    As he bent down, hurrying to pull on his boots before she vanished again as mysteriously as she had appeared, it struck him that he genuinely did not want her to go.
    It was a sobering moment of self-honesty, and made him pause.
    All day long, throughout his chores and his grueling physical regimen, the truth was, he had been anticipating the chance to talk to her again, though he had not wanted to admit it to himself.
    Now he had chased her away with his clumsiness, and her absence left him starkly facing the true loneliness of his situation.
    It was one thing to retreat from humanity for a time, but quite another to have a beautiful girl run away from a chap for acting like a barbarian.
    Maybe I have