When She Said I Do Read Free

rigid nipples. Callie gasped at the sensations jolting through her at such shocking contact.
    Never. Never, ever. She’d never been touched … there.
    And you never will. Your time has passed, remember? A spinster’s life, that’s all there is before you.
    He froze as well, his arm still crossing her body. Then, slowly, he pulled it back, dragging it intentionally sideways. His fine white sleeve tugged slightly at the paper-thin chemise, rubbing the fabric into delicate flesh so tight it ached.
    A sound came out of Callie’s throat. Part fear, part shock, part astonished, shivering awakening.
    Never, ever.
    She began to shiver now, her body caught in tremors beyond her ability to still. His arm dropped away. She closed her eyes tightly.
    All he has done is take back his jewels. Perhaps he yet means me no harm.
    “A virgin fantasy? Not my usual delusion, but one learns not to argue the point.” His tone was soft, odd, as if she weren’t even there.
    “Seduction, then? Make her want me? Impossible. This is even worse than the damned dog…”
    Callie’s eyes squeezed shut more tightly. He thought she wished to be seduced? Yet what else was a man to think, to find a soaking-wet, half-naked girl in his rooms? Horror laced through her, building in her throat, unable to be released in a scream.
    One shoulder of her chemise began to slip down, down …
    She started, jerking in his grasp. “Shh,” he whispered in her ear. “There’s nothing to fear, sweet wraith. You are simply too lovely to remain concealed.”
    One half of Callie’s mind was gibbering in panic, running about in tiny circles and waving mad hands in the air. The other half wondered at a man who seemed so determined to be gentle with a woman so entirely in his power.
    She felt his arm go around her and then the other tiny sleeve fell halfway down her elbow. A tug on the fabric was all it took to drag the damp, clinging fabric to puddle at her waist, her arms trapped at the elbow by the sleeves. The chill in the room sent another shiver through her that seemed to culminate in her ever-hardening nipples.
    She felt rather than heard him drag in a long, deep breath.
    “Open your eyes.”
    Callie hesitated, then did as he commanded her in that roughened voice. The image in the mirror was a wicked one, indeed. Her shoulders, her torso, her breasts, bare and ivory against the larger darkness of him behind her. The crumpled chemise, pinning her arms, made her look shameless, somehow almost worse than being naked.
    She raised her gaze to her own eyes in the mirror, wide and shocked above his big hand covering her mouth … Is that me?
    “You yet have something of mine.”
    She still wore the long strand of perfect pearls. It draped down between her breasts, gleaming ethereally in the golden glow of the candle.
    Her hands fluttered up to take it off, but he caught them like butterflies, trapped carefully in his larger ones. He pressed their tangled fingers between her breasts.
    “You could keep it, delicious spirit, if you wish.”
    The words were broken, as if torn from a throat unused to coaxing anyone for anything.
    “A small request, perhaps? No, too many in my mind to choose … I could ask for more … one for each and every pearl?”
    Warm fingers trailed down the strand, brushing lightly on her skin. “There are so many pearls … I could keep you for a year or more with such a bounty. Would you return to me each night to earn a pearl? A dying man’s wish? I would release you happily in the end, if only you would bring your warmth to my cold evenings and my colder dawns…”
    Callie felt some of the fear leak away at the loneliness in his deep voice. He did not know what he said, locked into his brandy-soaked fancies. She would explain herself, convince him that she was a real girl, a gently bred one at that, fallen upon his hearth in need of shelter from the storm.
    Then, releasing her, his hot hands closed over her breasts and his hot mouth