Page 54 of Almost a Bride
He put his hands on her arms and drew her nearer. She felt like an observer, urging herself to experience her first kiss.
At the last moment, she turned her head aside and offered her cheek. His lips were soft, but there was none of the magic she experienced when Thornton merely brushed her skin with his fingers.
“Good night,” she murmured, her thoughts confused. Didn’t she want the safety of John’s name, of such a calm, unthreatening life?
He walked to the door, giving her a regretful smile over his shoulder. “I’ll return again,” he promised, then closed the door behind him.
Roselyn sagged against the trestle table, then crossed to the window, looking through the murky glass at his retreating back. She put her hot face in her hands.
“He’s gone,” she finally called.
She could hear Thornton’s sigh. “You’d better come up.”
She glanced up sharply. “Why?”
“I believe I’m stuck.”
Chapter 16
Spencer didn’t feel a single twinge of guilt for lying—he wasn’t quite sure what he felt, after listening to that country boy court Roselyn.
He tried to tell himself it was better this way. He’d return to the treachery of London in just six days and have the betrothal contract broken; then he and Roselyn would both be free of each other.
The thought of calling her an adulterer before the entire court made his stomach sour in a way he hadn’t felt before. But that’s what she was—why did he let her innocence and serenity make him reluctant to hurt her? It was the only way.
The other part of him felt anger churning inside his gut that she would play kissing games when her own betrothed could overhear.
Roselyn’s head appeared in the loft, followed by her trim shoulders and well-formed breasts, encased in that awful widow’s black. When she finally stood above him, she gave him a suspicious look.
“You do not look ‘stuck.’”
A flash of some emotion—he told himself it was anger—surged through him, and he hooked his foot around her ankle. With a gasp, she tottered, and he caught her arm and pulled her on top of him. They sank down into the prickly straw pallet, and he realized she’d given him the comfortable one stuffed with goose feathers.
Her squirming hips rubbed his as she tried to pull away.
“Spencer!” she gasped.
Even her breath across his ear and cheek made him think lustful thoughts—and he’d never heard his Christian name on her lips. When she pushed against his chest and rose up above him, he turned her onto her back, her head pillowed in his arm, his leg thrown across hers to keep her still.
In the murky darkness, she blinked at him in astonishment, her incredibly full lips parted, her breath coming fast.
“Don’t!” she cried.
“Why not? Touching my own betrothed is as far from being scandalous as I’ve ever gotten.”
“But why are you doing this?” she asked in a whisper that reminded him of how intimate and alone they were.
“Has he ever kissed you?”
If possible, her eyes widened even more. “Of course he’s kissed me.”
With each breath, her breasts brushed his arm.
“I don’t mean a brotherly kiss on the cheek.” He leaned closer and nuzzled her cheek, smelling the sweet scent of her skin, feeling it arouse him more than any fine perfume.
She was trembling now. “His kisses aren’t brotherly.”
“But they’re never on a more intimate place than the side of your face. So you admit he’s never truly kissed you?”
