Never Marry a Viscount by Anne Stuart

Author:Anne Stuart [Stuart, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Historical romance, Victorian, Fiction
ISBN: 9781477824092
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Published: 2014-09-22T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SOPHIE COULD TELL WHEN his breathing slowed and he sank into a deep sleep. His muscles relaxed, and she knew she could let him go and he wouldn’t notice. She didn’t want to. She wanted to burrow against his big, strong body and hide. She felt . . . so many things. Shame. Anger. Pain. A strange churning inside her that seemed to claw at her, demanding something. She should hate him. He’d ruined everything. But all she could do was hold him to her, her fingers in his long, silky hair.

She knew, deep in her bruised heart, that this had been her fault, not his. She was the one who had let sheer, overwhelming animal attraction distract her; she was the one who had held him and told him yes. She could come up with all sorts of excuses, but in the end she had to answer to herself. And she knew that no excuse would absolve her of this.

She’d ruined her life for a moment of pleasure. Well, to be sure, there had been more than a few moments, and while the tearing pain when he’d thrust all the way inside her had been like cold water on a bonfire, there had still been a kind of primitive joy in the possession, even as it hurt.

It always hurt the first time, Bryony had informed her with the knowledgeable voice of a confirmed virgin. It hurt a lot more than she’d thought, but then, Alexander hadn’t made any effort to ease it for her. She could be angry with him about that, she thought, as she stroked his smooth, damp skin. But in the end she knew that she was the one to blame.

This was such a strange feeling, as if that rough, erotic joining had forever changed her heart and soul. This was a random coupling for him, but it was something more for her. A gift, a promise, a connection that wouldn’t be easily broken, no matter what happened next.

And nothing would happen next. She had to leave, just as she’d planned, and pretend this had never happened.

Let go of him, she told herself, but her arms didn’t seem to be paying any attention to her brain. Move away, pull yourself together, and assess the damage. She couldn’t. Soon enough she was going to have to disappear, get away from here and try to regain some semblance of her life. But for just a few moments more she wanted to sink into the feel of him.

A murky light was beginning to seep through a crack in the curtains, and sudden shock made Sophie release him and roll on her back, looking upward. Looking up at what she’d always looked up at during her years at Renwick—the top of the coffered ceiling. She was in her old room, her old bed. She’d just been deflowered in the very bed, perhaps the very sheets, where she’d formed such romantic fantasies about it. The handsome, deferential lordling, shy and adoring, the coupling that had been long on bliss and short on detail.

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