Lord Deverill's Heir by Catherine Coulter (best books to read all time .TXT) 📗

her skirt higher, but there were too many years of rules and embarrassment holding her back.

He blinked. “I believe that after eighteen and some odd years, I want no piece of chicken to come between us. Your stockings are lovely.”

“Oh, I thought you were looking at the ground.” He laughed. “No, you didn’t. You know very well that those damned water reeds hold no interest at all for me.” He sat down close to her. She felt suddenly warm, and with unsteady fingers untied the bow below her left ear and lifted off her bonnet.

Dr. Branyon picked up the bonnet and gently tossed it off to one side.

Slowly he lifted his hand to her face, letting his fingers trace over her smooth cheek, her straight nose, and come to rest lightly against her pink lips. “Your ankles are lovely, your hair is lovely, but most of all, you are so utterly beautiful inside, it makes me wonder if I can ever come to deserve you.”

“You deserve me? Oh goodness, Paul, it’s the other way around. No, you are perfect. I haven’t yet seen your ankles, but I know that I want to run my fingers through your hair and just stare at you. May I stare at you for the next fifty years?”

Now this was something utterly delightful he hadn’t expected at all. He’d prayed for something like this, but he hadn’t expected it. “Are you proposing to me?” He gently slipped his hand behind her neck, over the thick coil of heavy blond hair, and drew her to him. He thought she looked like a young girl readying for her first kiss. He had the good sense and patience to realize that her gesture was a tentative one, even though she had just proposed something to him. He prayed it was marriage.

She was staring at his mouth and not answering. He kissed her gently, barely touching his lips to hers, savoring the taste of her, the softness of her mouth. He felt a fluttering response in her and lightly rested his hands on her shoulders and pushed her onto her back. Her eyes flew open and he read uncertainty, perhaps fear. Probably fear. He was moving too quickly. Immediately he released her and balanced himself on his elbow beside her. He had been certain for years that the earl had not treated her well. Yet, there was an air of fragile innocence about her that even her husband had failed to extinguish. Perhaps when they were married, she would speak of him.

“Did you mean to propose to me, Ann? If you want to stare at me for that long a time, surely marriage is the only solution, the only way to prevent our neighbors from gossiping about us.” She smiled up at him, a lazy, impish smile, now devoid of uncertainty, and said, “Indeed, I fear that I must, Paul. I would be a terribly loose woman were I to kiss a man I did not intend to wed.”

“Then I must kiss you again to double ensure your compliance.” She was laughing when he kissed her, and his tongue entered her mouth.

She could not help the shock of fear that made her grit her teeth suddenly against him. In that instant it was the earl, and not Paul, whose mouth was grinding against hers, bruising her, forcing her lips open. How she had hated his wet, probing tongue, not that he had ever wasted much of his time kissing her. No, he wanted her on her back, naked and silent, open and willing.

Dr. Branyon instantly drew back. There was no tenderness in his eyes or in his voice. “I’m not the damned earl,” he said. “Look at me, Ann. I’m not that man who hurt you and humiliated you.” She was shaking. He took her hand in his and kissed her fingers. “I would never hurt you. I would never humiliate you. I would never make you feel like less than nothing.

You know that. You know me. You know I would protect you with my life.”

“I know that you would. It won’t happen again.”

“It might and it doesn’t matter. You will be free of him soon. Do you believe me?”

She did. “I hated him so very much, hated him as much as Arabella worshiped him.”

He wanted to know what that bastard had done to her, yet he knew that it wasn’t fair to push her. No, if she wanted to tell him, eventually she would. He had to remember that the bastard was dead and he wasn’t. Her memories would fade and disappear. He would have her with him forever. He asked quietly, “Do you trust me, Ann?”

She raised her fingers to touch his mouth. “I trust you more than I feared him,” she said simply.

He gathered her into his arms and pulled her gently to him. He pressed his hand against the small of her back and felt her snuggle close against him, her full breasts against his chest, her belly and thighs pressing against his. She slid her arms about his neck and buried her face against his neck. Just having him close to her, feeling his warm breath on her back, made her replete with happiness.

He hoped she couldn’t feel his sex, hard and shoving against her belly.

For one of the few times in his life he was thankful for the many layers of clothing women wore. He wanted to caress her hips, kiss every delightful curve of hers, but he forced his hands to remain on her back.

He wanted to take off her clothes, stroke her, kiss her, and come inside her. He wanted her to hold him against her. He wanted her to find her woman’s pleasure. But it was too soon, despite her teasing, her bravado.

He forced himself to calm, but it was difficult. They lay in each other’s arms until the sun began its rapid downward descent.

He awoke to light soft kisses against his chin, his cheek, his nose. He’d fallen