Free To Tame a Rogue by Kelly Jameson

and plunged it into you after he was through spreading your legs? Look at me, Camille.”
    When she wouldn’t, Nicholas reached over and pulled her onto his lap. His rough fingers cupped her chin, forcing her to look into his eyes. Her bottom was nestled in the hard cradle of his thighs, a much too intimate position.
    “Perhaps I had you figured wrong. Do you like the rough sort, Camille? I bet you know how to drive a man to distraction.” His voice was low now, seeming to scrape at the constrained darkness of the carriage.
    “I don’t...” Camille said but was silenced by the touch of his lips upon hers, hard, eager, angry. She tried to push him away but his lips were firm, demanding, his breath hot and sweet with the lingering taste of brandy.
    His lips searched hers, tasting, teasing, taunting. Despite her best efforts to resist, a shock of warmth flooded her soul. His hard male form was pressed tightly against her, yet his lips were soft and caressing, almost possessive. She found herself wanting to taste him, her body traitorously hungry for some small measure of warmth. His long, lean fingers threaded through her silky, golden hair, scattering pins in their wake.
    His lips continued down her throat, weaving a hot trail until they returned to plunder her mouth again, his tongue forcing her lips open to his rough exploration. Camille heard him groan and then, just as suddenly, he released her.
    “As I expected,” he said, “you are no innocent.” Camille felt the moment evaporate like the morning mist, and was rendered speechless once more.
    “We are alone now. How could you stop me from taking what is rightfully mine, what now belongs to no other man? I am certain you would prefer my lovemaking to that beast of a man who had you on his lap.”
    Camille trembled. “You...you said you would not demand your husbandly rights.”
    His eyes, a mixture of gold heat and ice, skirted her form. “Do not fear. I am not as callous and cruel as you may think. I do not possess the same sort of morals as one of your tavern patrons. Besides, you are not the type of woman I normally desire.”
    It was then that she noticed the bruise and scrape on his left cheek. Instinctively she reached to touch it. "You’re hurt,” she said quietly.
    He jerked at her touch, grabbing her hand quickly and moving it aside. “It’s nothing.”
    Sternly, he set her away from him and they sat the rest of the trip in silence.

 
     
     
     
     
    14
     
    Nicholas did not look at her. His thoughts disturbed him. Still, the way she had responded to him puzzled him; there was innocence to her silky, heated kisses and yet a passion that promised so much more. And despite what she was, who she was, he couldn’t deny that he wanted her badly…wanted to rip open her bodice and expose her soft, rounded breasts to the roughness of his hands.
    He found himself wishing he were the first to show her the pleasures that could be had between a man and a woman. He had to stop thinking such thoughts or he might end up breaking his promise never to touch her—a promise that was now causing him physical pain for his manhood was swollen beneath the cloth of his trousers. Belatedly, he thought of his mistress Lavinia and realized his night of passion would have to wait.
    In the darkness he stared at Camille’s soft profile, the outline of her lush lips, noted the rise and fall of her breasts beneath her flimsy garment as she breathed. She wasn’t a virgin. Perhaps he would take what he wanted, when she was ready. For despite her heated words, she had responded to him. There was no denying that.
     

 
     
     
     
    15
     
    Camille felt dazed and confused by what had happened. Unknowingly, she traced her lips, lips that were slightly swollen from his kisses, with her trembling fingertips. The carriage was stifling, the night air unusually oppressive and humid, and she longed for the comfort of her room—the room she had so graciously been granted as hers