Free Margaret Moore by A Rogues Embrace Page A

fingertips rested against his soft lips, while the stubble of his beard was like sand against the rest of her fingers.
    It was a simple thing and yet strangely exciting.
    Too exciting. She had loved foolishly once; she would not allow herself to believe herself in love or be swept away by what had to be lust.
    “No, do not draw back,” he insisted softly, gently grabbing her wrist so that his lips were still against her fingertips. “You smell of lavender.”
    “We store our clothing with lavender,” she replied matter-of-factly.
    “Ah.” He shifted closer. “Yes, the delightful scent is stronger on your undergarment.”
    She broke away, trying to see him in the dark. “What are you doing?”
    “The prologue.”
    He ran his fingers along the neckline of her chemise, grazing her skin ever so lightly. Her skin seemed to burn where he touched her.
    “No silk or satin or lace?” he whispered, as if he were truly interested. “Not even at the hem?”
    She tried to subdue a gasp when she felt his other hand on her leg. He slowly moved it upward.
    “I put no store in such frippery,” she said weakly.
    “A very utilitarian philosophy,” he observed as he took his hand away from her limb.
    Of course she was relieved.
    She started when she felt his breath warm on her cheek, his lips obviously a mere fraction of an inch away. “Unfortunately, that garment is a hindrance at present—unless you would prefer to leave it on, if you find that more exciting.”
    Before she could answer—if indeed, she could have found the words to express her surprise that he would want her naked, something William Longbourne had never suggested the whole of their unhappily married life—he pulled her to him and kissed her.
    He kissed as she had always imagined a man in love should kiss the woman he adored, with passion and tenderness in thrilling alliance as if he were gently persuading her to love him, rather than demanding.
    As if he would ask rather than commandeer, share rather than horde. As if he wanted her to experience all the excitement he did, or maybe even more.
    What kind of equality was this? What kind of freedom was he offering?
    She broke the kiss, wanting to think—needing to think, or else she would succumb to the powerful spell of his kisses and caresses.
    “What is the matter?”
    She decided he was, perhaps, deserving of an explanation. “My husband never kissed me when he loved me.”
    “Did you not love him?”
    Elissa’s defenses came to the fore. “I meant when he made love to me.”
    “And I meant, did you not make love with him?”
    “Of course I did. I bore him a child.”
    “No, madam, you misunderstand,” he said very gently, and with a new understanding in his voice. “I should ask, did you enjoy making love with him?”
    “It is a wife’s duty to submit to her husband.”
    “And so, since I am now your husband, if I were to throw myself upon you and take my pleasure of you as if you were a cheap whore, you would not complain?”
    A cheap whore.
    Although she had never put the feeling into words, that was exactly how William Longbourne had made her feel.
    “Yet, as you say, you bore him a child. Everyone knows that for a child to be conceived, the woman has to be passionately aroused,” he said.
    “Every
man
believes it, and it is a very convenient way to contradict a charge of rape if the woman subsequently bears a child, but surely I am not the only woman who knowsotherwise. I assure you, sir, I derive no pleasure from the act of love.”
    “Yet,” Richard murmured, silently cursing the late William Longbourne for a disgusting, selfish lout.
    But he was also thankful that he now knew how to proceed with her: with patience, with every subtle method he could recall to arouse a woman, and with even more self-control than he usually practiced. He would ensure that she enjoyed the act of love as she never had before.
    But first, he would get rid of the king and his courtiers and their