Perilous Risk Read Online Free

or if she should demur. She had simply to obey. Jon was in control and he made it all so easy. And so exciting. With Jon, she was free in a way she’d never been before he had come into her life.
    She was the luckiest of women. Tonight, she would be with the man she loved above all others and she would also experience the man who fascinated her.
    Jon touched her shoulder and gave it a little squeeze. “On with you now, go ask your stuffy looking prig to come here.” His breath caught slightly with his understated chuckle. “Tell him I’d like to play a game of chess.”
    “I can’t do that.”
    “Certainly you can.”
    “No, you don’t understand. I rejected his advances.”
    Jon’s hand tensed on her shoulder. “Ah, so he made advances to you?”
    “Yes.” She forced the reply past the sudden tightness in her throat.
    “And you said no?”
    She nodded.
    “Without hesitation?”
    “Of course.” She choked the words out.
    “Good girl.”
    Relief flooded her. He still trusted her. Things between them were just as they should be.
    He gave her a gentle push. “Go on, now.”
    She stood and wavered a moment on legs that shook both from nervousness and excitement.
    Stephen Drake’s eyes widened as she approached him. But he said nothing, just continued to stare at her.
    “Lord Ruel would like for you to join us over there.” She nodded back towards Jon’s wingchair.
    At Stephen’s continued silence, equal parts apprehension and anticipation fluttered through her stomach, weakened her legs and tingled into her toes. A little gush of nervous laughter threatened to come spilling out. She swallowed it back, yet all the while she couldn’t help but flutter her lashes at him. Damn. It didn’t help a bit. His expression didn’t ease.
    She cleared her throat delicately. “He would like to have a word with you.”
    “Would he really?” He spoke in a hushed tone and that faintly husky, deep voice settled over her like clotted cream on warm peaches. The hoarseness was something new, something that had come to him in the years since she had known him as a boy. She had asked him about it yesterday, and he had answered that he’d had a “tricky mishap during an archery contest.”
    He’d been lying, she saw it in his eyes.
    “Yes, he-he would like to discuss chess,” she said softly, her breath coming in little catches.
    His expression remained guarded, slightly aloof.
    She began to feel foolish.
    He turned to his companion. “It seems my attention is requested elsewhere.”
    His chess partner nodded.
    Stephen stood.
    A thrill passed from deep in her belly down to her toes. His tall, broad-shouldered body seemed even more imposing in his dark evening clothes. As an eighteen-year-old boy, he’d been gawky, gangly, overly slender. He had never before inspired even the flicker of an impure thought in her mind.
    But oh, how things had changed since then!
    Now his long limbs were leanly muscled and he moved with effortless, cat-like grace. He gave the bottom of his pale-grey silk waistcoat a tug down and the action drew her notice to his flat stomach and incredibly narrow hips.
    Earlier today, when he had first made his declarations and pressed his advances upon her on the terrace, before she had run for the gardens, she had seen the straining of his erection delineated against the buff trousers he’d been wearing. It had made her sorry that tight pantaloons were no longer the fashion.
    She glanced up at his face. His expression had warmed a bit. Encouraged by that, she didn’t pretend to be abashed at her admiration of his form but instead gave him a smile. She ran her fingertips over the lace on her bodice and was rewarded when his gaze dropped and his pupils dilated. Her breath quickened and her nipples drew into tight points.
    She offered him her hand. “Come, my lord wishes to speak with you.”
    Somehow the electricity crackling between them went flat. He didn’t take her hand. Tightness entered her