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face with trembling fingers.
He stared at her with eyes dark and soft with tenderness and gently kissed her cheeks, her forehead, and
her mouth, until her blood began to race again and she began to move beneath him. Her body quivered at
his touch; her hips rocked her against the smooth, hard length of him, seeking the release she knew would
follow.
Stunned by her ready passion, lost in the tight, hot softness of her body, Seth Goodwin forgot his resolve
to treat his virgin seductress gently and thrust into her body with hot, rapid motions, over and over again,
until she cried out beneath him like a woman gone mad and his own world exploded into blackness and
brilliance, like a lightning-filled sky.
He was more confused than ever.
Hope had been virgin; that was indisputable. He had felt the barrier, felt the tearing; her virgin blood was
dark across his own body and smeared across the pristine sheets of the bed. He had felt the incredible
tightness, heard her release her breath in a hiss of pain.
And yet, her behavior had not been that of an innocent. The way she had flaunted her body in the
sunlight, clean and gleaming ivory and gold, and the way her hands had played over him, the bold way
she had stroked and fondled him&
Hardly the actions of an inexperienced girl. But where had she learned such things?
He rolled over in the bed and raised himself on one arm. Hope was dressing, doing her hair in the mirror,
unaware of his observation. Good. Seth had learned that when people think themselves unwatched their
motions and behavior are most revealing.
She was examining her own reflection with a bemused expression, tilting her head this way and that. Her
blue-green eyes were dark and solemn. There was no vanity in her expression, even though she was
enchantingly lovely. Instead he saw concern, and a dark, brooding look that had no place in a face so
young and lovely.
She noticed his scrutiny and smiled over her shoulder, a satisfied cat smile. Not the look of girl who'd just
lost her virginity.
"No tears, Hope?"
She looked confused. "Tears? I thought it was wonderful."
"What about the loss of your maidenhead, Hope? Does it mean nothing to you?"
"Oh. That. Well, no. Not much, I guess." She turned back to the mirror. She tried several times to pin her
hair up, but it kept sliding down her neck. After a few attempts she began to braid it.
Seth found himself becoming worried by her apparent lack of concern. "You don't think I'll marry you,
do you? Because I won't."
She raised her dark brows and gave him a cool look. "Excuse me? Excuse me? I have absolutely no
intention of getting married, to you or anyone else. Ever. The end." She turned her back and muttered
something under her breath that sounded inexplicably like butt face.
"Don't be ridiculous. Of course you'll marry. What else is there?"
She looked at him as if he had said something stupid.
"Try this: As long as I'm not married, nobody can louse up my life. I'm in charge of my own life. I'm the
captain of the ship; I'm the commander-in-chief; I'm the big cheese "
"I was with you up until the cheese part."
"Whatever. The point is, I don't want to get married. Nothing personal, you understand. It just doesn't
float my boat."
"I see," Seth said, feeling oddly insulted. Float her boat, indeed. What utter nonsense. He reached for his
breeches on the floor with as much dignity as he could muster. Somehow, he felt like the wronged virgin
instead of the ravishing villain.
"Look here," he said, after a moment's reflection, "women simply can't go around sleeping with men and
refusing to get married."
Hope was lacing her gown, the blue-and-white cotton with a floral stripe that accented the blue of her
eyes, the gold of her hair. She looked up from her task and met his eyes. "Why not?" She wrapped her
golden braid into a knot on the back of her head and pinned it there with brisk, no-nonsense motions.
"Why not?" Seth repeated. "Why not? Because it's immoral, for one thing. Only a harlot would ever
consider such a thing."
"So, does that make me a harlot?"
"No. I mean, yes, if you were to continue such behavior."
"Let me get this straight," she said with a gleam of mischief in her blue-green eyes. "A woman who sleeps
with a man with no intention of marriage is a harlot."
"Correct," Seth agreed.
"So, what does that make you?"
Seth felt a vein pulse in his forehead. "A man, damn it. After all, I had no idea you were a virgin. You
certainly didn't act like one."
"Oh, and you're an expert? Just how many virgins have you deflowered, Mr. Morals Expert?"
"Two," he snapped. "You and my wife."
She went white and the hairbrush fell from her hand and clattered to the floor. She bent to pick it up, her
head down, her expression hidden. The sunlight coming through the window was brilliant against the top
of her head.
"Hope."
She looked up, and Seth felt cruel. Her soft mouth was set in a hard, tight line, her eyes dark with grief.
She looked like she'd been kicked.
"I'm sorry. That was unkind of me. Jane has been dead for four years now."
She exhaled softly. "I'm sorry," she said. "Was it horrible? Did you love her? How did she die?"
Seth reached for his shirt and pulled it over his head. "How odd you are," he commented. "Did your
mother teach you nothing? You should say, 'Forgive me if I have mentioned something that causes you
grief,' or, 'My condolences on your loss,' or some such thing. Instead, you ask me questions as if you
have a right to know."
She said nothing to that, simply walking to the window and staring out at the inn yard. "Sorry."
Seth dressed in silence, thinking of Jane. He had been barely twenty when he married her, young and
idealistic and mad to possess her. Little, quiet Jane, with her doelike eyes and modest behavior. She had
cried with horror when he took her virginity, her eyes closed and her hands curled into fists. He had tried
to be gentle; he had promised her that it would get better.
It never did. She hated the marriage bed; she always lay still and tense beneath his body. It made him feel
like a brute, like an animal, and after a while he ceased his unwanted attentions.
Soon it seemed as if they led separate- lives beneath the same roof; Jane and her church meetings and
sewing circles, he and his shop and his furniture. A travesty of a marriage, a sham. And then she had
succumbed to influenza, and she slipped out of life as quietly and modestly as she had lived. She died
almost politely, as simply as if she had walked into the kitchen and never come out.
And he had felt only guilt and relief. By the time she died, Jane was a stranger to him.
"Hey." Startled, Seth looked up. Hope reached down and stroked his cheek, her eyes as tender as her [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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