Filed To Story: Alessia Mistaken as Mistress Book PDF Free
He parted his lips and felt a shiver run through her body. He touched his tongue to her warm sleek skin, and a sigh escaped her lips, the heat puffing against his shoulder. His body tensed, nipples drawing tight, and the next instant her palm flattened against his chest. He’d never felt anything quite as wonderful or as exhilarating as her cautious touch.
She tasted as incredible as she smelled, faintly salty, faintly musky, but unique and feminine. Beneath his lips and tongue her blood pounded, evidence of her intense reaction to his nearness and the liberties he took.
A fierce possessiveness gripped Nicholas unexpectedly. He opened his mouth wide on her neck and suckled, flicking his tongue over the cords and tendons beneath the surface. She made a shuddering sound low in her throat and melted against him.
He wrapped both arms around her, one at her waist, the other across her back, and crushed her lush pliant body to his bare chest, relishing the press of her lavish breasts.
Pinning her shoulders with his elbows, he brought both hands up to her hair and plunged them into the mass of curls, bringing her head back and her face to his.
Their gazes met for the barest of moments, hers a wide-eyed look of surprise and anticipation.
He kissed her then, without an inch of space between their bodies, without a care as to her hair or her dress or the consequences. He kissed her with all the appallingly unrestrained need she made him feel.
The kiss was accusatory and inflammatory and as out of control as Nicholas had felt since he’d learned of her existence. It held all the frustration and carnal desire and allabsorbing passion he’d held back since he’d first seen her.
Body trembling, fingers curled into the hair on his chest, she kissed him back.
He touched her lips with his tongue, and hesitantly, she parted them so he could deepen the kiss.
Oh, her mouth was sweet. Her body set him on fire, and the plaintive sounds she made when he tilted his head and fitted their bodies closer, were sweet and erotic and enough to make a man lose control.
The thought of losing control registered briefly. Gently, he eased his mouth from hers, cupped her face and studied her through a haze of dauntless desire. Her lips were pink and gently swollen, her soul-reaching eyes filled with gemlike wonder.
Her palm still lay pressed against his chest. His heart skipped half a dozen much-needed beats she had to feel.
Her other hand rose between them and with one finger she tentatively touched his lower lip.
That seemingly innocent, yet sensual touch ignited more than desire within him. He raised her face, and this time when their lips touched it was with the utmost tenderness and sense-riveting awe.
He’d never kissed a woman like this before.
He’d known passion and fire and even eagerness.
But never a burning tenderness and breathless soulsqueezing hunger that disturbed and quenched, rent and restored all at the same time.
This woman confused and angered him and turned him inside out. And she did it all effortlessly, guilelessly, without plan or remorse.
And she probably did it every bit as well as she had with Stephen.
He wanted his brother’s wife.
With bittersweet regret Nicholas ended the kiss. She steadied herself by grabbing his bare shoulder, the warmth a lingering reminder of her heat and vibrancy.
He wanted his brother’s conniving wife.
Outrage at his helplessness and the futility of the situation rose to the surface.
Claire stared at him with uncertainty and doubt clouding her expression. What did she want from him? What did he have to give her?
The answer came swiftly. A home. The means to live comfortably and raise her child in style.
And she already had all that. Her position had never been in question-except perhaps to her. Maybe she thought securing Nicholas’s affections would ensure her place.
“Next time you want something, come to me and ask for it,” he said. “Don’t snoop about like a thief.”
Embarrassment, or perhaps guilt, darkened her already shadowed eyes. He couldn’t hold her gaze and deliberately looked away.
It took every bit of fortitude he possessed to stem his anger and claim responsibility for what had just happened here. He would not blame her for his lack of control.
Though she hadn’t seemed the least bit reluctant, it would not have happened if he hadn’t allowed it.
No matter what he believed Stephen’s faults were, Nicholas had no business entering into a liaison with his wife. But it galled the hell out of him that the first woman to stir him in a good many years had to be his brother’s widow. And hardly the type of woman he would choose to bring home to his mother.
Claire was nothing at all like the kind of female he approved of or took a second look at. But in some relentless carnal manner, she was everything he desired.
The combination ate at his sanity. And worsened his temperament Why she even shared his kisses he’d never understand. Unless she feared not to. Or unless it was a part of her plan.
The air grew tense. Nicholas drew in a renovating breath and stepped back.
Where would they go from here?
Alessia didn’t know which fear was greater, her fear of Nicholas himself, or her fear of her feelings for him. Both had the power to destroy her.
Trembling, she backed away, the feel of his hands still in her hair, the scorching heat of his lips lingering on hers, her heart all but bursting from her chest in its tumultuous thumping.
If that was punishment, she’d gladly have died from it on the spot. Humiliation blistered her skin as effectively as leaping flames. She couldn’t resist a glance at the lips she’d kissed, a look at the broad expanse of hair-covered chest she’d been pressed against only seconds before. His face and body were beautiful, his words cruel, and his actions a constant puzzle.
He drew her with his looks and his nearness and his heat, yet repelled her with distrust and cynicism. At least when Gaylen and her father turned her aside and spurned her, she’d known the finality of their intentions by their actions.
Nicholas had her head in a spin with his confusing words and his inconsistent behavior. He’d kissed her like a man starving for the taste of her, yet just as quickly, he’d ended it and seemed prepared to continue their encounter as though the kiss had never happened.
She had no defense for her actions, no explanation for being in his rooms. She stood before him at his mercy, praying he harbored a shred of compassion.
“Did you find what you wanted in Stephen’s letters?”
She met his gaze for only the briefest of seconds. “Partially.”
“Anything else you’d like while you’re here?”
His sarcasm wasn’t lost on her. She shook her head.
“Oh, come now, surely there’s something else. Don’t go away empty-handed.”
Instantly the desire pounding through her veins freed itself in a new form. She had no right to feel anger toward him. None whatsoever. This was his home and these were his private rooms and possessions. Regardless, it welled up, a consuming rush of rage that started a new pulse in her veins. “All right,” she said.
Gaining new courage, she looked up to find smugness in the glint of his deep brown eyes and the tilt of his freshlyshaven chin.
“I’d like the results of the search you did on my background.”
His stony expression revealed nothing. “What makes you think I had your background checked out?”
“Everything I know about you.”
He glared at her a minute longer. Had she gone too far? He was unpredictable and his emotions so deep she never knew where she stood with him. But he’d never harmed her. She didn’t believe he would.
“Why would you want to see the file?” he asked. “You know who you are and where you came from.”
She glanced away, idly noting a pigeon on the sill outside the window. “Because I want to know what you know, that’s why.”