Page 13 of A Baby to Make Her His Bride

Let me, he thought, imagining the feel of that stud in her lobe against his tongue.

“The vampire one is decent.” He leaned his shoulder against the wall. “The duke is dry. The pirate is filthy.” In a good way.

“Oh?” The way she brightened with interest and promptly shoved the duke back on the shelf in favor of the sea blue cover of the erotic swashbuckler was adorable. “I didn’t expect you would read romance.”

“I don’t sleep well. I’ve read everything in this house, trying to nod off. There’s a board book in the basement about a hungry caterpillar that almost worked, but the ending got too exciting.”

She chuckled and rose. “I’m pretty sure I read that one back when I was learning to read.”

Her nightgown only went to the tops of her thighs. He bit back a groan.

“I’m sorry about the insomnia.” Her concerned gaze was a fresh hit of pillowy softness. “Is it stress? Because of all you’ve been through?”

“Yeah.” He was exhausted by it. Bone-deep tired. The desire to ask for solace with her was profound.

“I’ll try not to get up in the night and disturb you, then.”

Heh. Good luck with that, he thought as she went back into her room and closed the door.

CHAPTER FOUR

TAKINGTHESEXYbook was a huge mistake.

Vienna was already struggling against her attraction to Jasper. That was why she hadn’t been able to sleep. She’d been thinking very wrong things about him even before she’d knelt outside his door like a concubine.

Her torrid thoughts had been made even more libidinous by a few chapters of the book he had recommended. Why did it feel like an erotic love letter to know he had read these provocative scenes and knew she was reading them now?

Soon, she had to set it aside because all she could imagine was Jasper holdinghercaptive. He coerced her into performing ribald acts to prolong her life, making her kneel on the cushion he provided when he opened his breeches. She then succumbed to his strength when he overwhelmed her and pressed her onto her elbows and knees so he could cover her and thrust into her for as long as he liked...

She buried a groan of lust into her pillow, giving up on sleep entirely once light broke through the crack in her curtains.

She was outside on the deck, doing her best to metaphorically scribble over her lascivious fantasies when he yanked her out of her trance again.

“More coffee?”

“Oh!” Her jolt came less from being startled, and more from excitement. Thrill at having him near again.

He stood behind the door screen holding the carafe, impassive and polite.

This behavior of hers was so mortifying!

She belatedly tilted her empty cup. “Yes, please.”

He slid the screen open and came to pour.

“Help yourself to the quiche,” she invited, trying to ignore the slope of his tanned shoulders beneath the torn-off sleeves of his white T-shirt and the frayed hem of his cutoff jeans, but those thigh muscles. The fine hairs on the back of his flat wrist. His Adam’s apple. Why did he have to beso much?

“Thanks.”

He took the carafe back to the kitchen and returned with his own mug and a slice of the quiche she had made. He settled into a chair across from her, squinting against the bright, overcast sky.

“You really focus when you work, don’t you?” His gaze flickered to the wide sketchbook she held.

“It’s why my grades weren’t the best in school. I would start doodling and, next thing I knew, everyone was turning in a quiz and all I had was a caricature of the class gerbil.”

“That’s not caricature. Is it Peyton?”

He had seen what she was working on? She started to tilt the pad into her chest, always protective of her work. Now that she thought about it, the urge to hide what she was doing probably had its roots in grade school, when she had got in so much trouble for drawing.

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