Strictly Seduction by Shayla Black

Author:Shayla Black
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Romance, General, Historical, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯), Fiction
ISBN: 1936596040
Publisher: Shelley Bradley LLC
Published: 2011-09-15T06:22:55+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Maddie opened her eyes to a dark, unfamiliar room. She lay alone in a cold, white-sheeted bed.

Something—a noise?—had jolted her from a sound sleep. Dazed, she sat up. The sheet slid down her breasts to fall into a heap in her lap.

To her astonishment, she was naked.

Memories of the previous night came rushing back. Aimee’s disappearance, Brock’s tender determination and help. And in the aftermath of her ordeal, the blistering warmth of his succor.

Dark and disquieting, desire flooded her stomach in a wild remembrance of shared kisses and sighs, of his skilled touch and heaven beyond her imagining. How easily he had guided her to that sweet bliss. Even more surprising, the poignant delight she had felt in sharing the moment with him.

A shocking turn of events, to be sure.

Then, once again, he had asked her to marry him. This time, his proposal seemed to come not from his ambition, but his heart. Maddie had seen the sincerity on his face, shining from those green eyes. Inside, her heart had shouted yes. But caution and experience had overridden that—barely. She owed him an answer by week’s end.

Lord, what answer would she give?

The noise that awakened her resounded again. It was a knock.

Maddie scrambled from the bed and searched the floor for her chemise. Fumbling in the weak moonlight glow filtering in from the next room, she finally found her shift and donned it.

As she headed for the door, she peeked at Aimee, who still slept soundly on the sofa, all tangled in the soft quilt.

Unable to resist, Maddie succumbed to the need to kiss her slumbering daughter, to draw in the powdery scent of her little-girl skin. She felt a moment of peace with the world. Aimee was the most important part of her life. Having her daughter returned and safe meant more than words could express.

And she owed it to Brock.

“Mrs. Smith?” a woman from the other side of the door called out.

Smith? The voice belonged to the innkeeper’s wife; she remembered it from the previous night. Had the woman knocked on the wrong door?

“Yer mister had a horse sent to ye and told me to wake ye before the sun rose.”

Brock. Clearly, he had left hours ago and sent her mount so she could return home, as he had said he would. Still, he continued to do his utmost to protect her good name, even misleading the innkeepers to believe they were man and wife.

“Thank you,” Maddie called to the woman.

Since the innkeeper’s wife did not look as if she’d fallen off the apple cart yesterday, Maddie had to assume the woman found Brock’s early morning disappearance and his instructions to his “missus” more than a bit suspicious. However, Maddie would also bet her last few sovereigns that Brock had paid the woman handsomely to look the other way.

Money did have its advantages, and in the past twenty-four hours, Brock had used them all to her benefit. She could not deny that warmed her heart.

“Oh, and yer mister had me bake some fresh gingerbread for the little lassie.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.