THE VIRGIN COURTESAN Read Online Free Page B

broke away, feeling her shivering against him.
    ‘We must get back. It’s just through here.’ Indeed, they only
walked a short way before Juliana saw the inn through the trees. She must have
doubled back on herself.
    ‘Why, and I thought I was lost!’ she laughed, but Guy heard the
note of hysteria. She had been through enough tonight for any woman. The urge to
protect her from any further harm was unbearable.
    ‘Anything could have happened to you,’ he reprimanded when they
were back in the room, averting his eyes from the outline of her body through
her damp chemise as she wrapped herself in the blankets. ‘Were you really so
terrified of me you would risk your life?’ He clenched his fists in
self-disgust, then jumped as he felt her cool touch on his back. He turned to
her, eyes questioning. She was looking up at him with an expression he couldn’t
read, but she looked at once incredibly vulnerable and entirely tempting.
    ‘Perhaps I was more terrified of myself,’ she murmured, ‘of my
reaction to you.’ Even as she said it, she knew it was true. Once again his arms
went around her and this time neither of them pulled away. Guy clutched her with
such force her feet were nearly lifted off the ground. His tongue explored her
mouth in a way that made things low down in her body tighten and throb, and she
felt her nipples stiffen with more than the cold she had been exposed to.
Indeed, she no longer felt cold at all; a delicious warmth started in her belly
and moved through her body like liquid, coming to rest in her most secret place.
She wanted his hands on her, there and everywhere else, and made no protest as
Guy stripped her of the blanket and then her chemise.
    His eyes were narrowed with his own desire as he stepped back
to drink in her body, his eyes leaving a burning trail across her skin as he
took in every inch of her. Juliana stood proud. Although all of her breeding
screamed at her to cover herself, there was no denying her body’s reaction to
his admiration, his gaze like a caress across her flesh. Better this, she
decided in the heat of the moment, better to give herself to a man she truly
desired and who looked at her with such passion, than one who saw her as a piece
of flesh to be bargained for.
    ‘You are truly beautiful.’ Guy said, his voice low, and he
swept her up, making her gasp at the sudden movement, and carried her to the
fire, bringing the blanket with him. He carried her with such confidence she
felt as light as duck down in his arms. He laid her down upon the blanket with a
tenderness that made her smile as he lay next to her, running his hand up and
down the length of her body, running fingers around her breasts and grazing them
over her hips. Light feathery kisses followed, until Juliana felt she would
explode with wanting. As he circled his fingertips around her breasts, her
nipples puckered as if straining for his touch, his mouth, and she heard a soft
mewing sound that she realised came from her own lips. It was a sound of more
than lust; it was need. The whole world had shrunk down to this room, this
moment, with the fire warm against her back and his hands playing over her
body.
    She knew what to do; Rose had spent weeks coaching her on the
ways to please a man, but Juliana had never expected to feel such wanton need,
accompanied by an almost exciting fear. When he finally crushed her breasts
together and took her nipples in his mouth she moaned aloud with a pleasure so
intense it was almost painful, arching her back under his touch. All of Rose’s
step-by-step instructions flew from her mind as her own body took over. As he
flicked his tongue over each of her nipples in turn, coaxing them to pucker and
peak even further, she moaned his name. He raised his head from her breasts,
looking at her with such intensity she bit her lip, catching her breath.
    ‘Does that please you?’ he murmured, running a hand over the
curve of her hip towards her thigh. She nodded mutely,