A Little Winter Scandal: A Regency Christmas Collection by Christi Caldwell

Author:Christi Caldwell [Caldwell, Christi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-12-10T00:00:00+00:00

Do not stop. Kiss me.

Those shockingly improper, and all things sinful, words remained unfinished.

Never in the course of her entire life had she been this close to a man. Nay, any person. As the ice princess this man had called her not even six hours earlier, people did not speak to her, and they certainly did not touch her. When all the girls at Mrs. Belden’s had whispered and chatted about those first forbidden kisses they’d received, a vicious envy had snaked through her—a desire to be that woman who drove gentlemen to dare conventions.

And now, standing in nothing more than her shift, in the powerful arms of this tall, virile stranger, eying her through his thick-hooded chestnut lashes, she felt—wanted. And there was something so very heady in being wanted.

William ran the pad of his thumb over her lower lip and her mouth parted slightly. “Cara mia,” he whispered. His breath invaded her senses like a potent aphrodisiac made of ale and peppermint. “Sei bellissima.”

My Cara, you are beautiful. All those blasted Italian lessons she’d despised her father for insisting she take, worth every moment of suffering and tedium to have William wrap those words in his mellifluous whisper.

Oh, God. Her lashes fluttered wildly. No one had ever called her beautiful. Since she’d been scuttled off to finishing school, nothing but cruel words and mocking jeers had been leveled at her—words she’d been entirely deserving of. His husky baritone, wrapping about those Italian endearments, caused a warm fluttering in her belly that fanned out and raced through her.

He lowered his face so a mere hairsbreadth separated them and froze. For one agonizing, endless moment, fear spiraled through her that he’d draw back and she’d never, ever know the passionate kiss of a man who desired her for more than her wealth or status as a duke’s daughter. Then she, who’d cloaked herself in a fictional strength and austerity, whispered, “Please.”

As that entreaty slipped so easily from her lips, she stiffened. The reality of who she was and who he was, a mocking stranger who’d despised her for her birthright, intruded. He ran his inscrutable gaze over her face as the horrifying possibility that this was all some orchestrated game to bring her shame pebbled in her belly.

He palmed her cheek. “Please what?”

Her insides twisted. He’d have her beg? Her father would turn her out and disavow her birthright if he witnessed her pleading with a stranger for his kiss like some wanton harlot. She closed her eyes and leaned into William’s hot caress. Her pulse raced wildly. Yet nothing mattered more in this moment, or any moment before this, than knowing his kiss. “Please, kiss me.”

His body went taut against hers; the muscles of his chest tightened. Her nipples pebbled the front of her thin nightshift and the air filled with her quick, raspy breaths. For one agonizing moment built on this inextricable, all-consuming need, she feared he would deny her breathless request.

A groan escaped him as he crushed her mouth under his with the ferocity of a man who burned with the same hunger consuming her.

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