An Unexpected Sin by Sarah Ballance Page B

needy and desperate for his touch. Already she was wholly, thoroughly smitten and could not imagine anything greater than the feelings coursing through her.
    Anne paused outside Josiah’s door, her thoughts still adrift. Prudence had entertained a dalliance or two of her own. Her tales had left Anne shocked and sputtering with disbelief, but now she could only admit curiosity. Dare she experience a man’s desire in such a way? It would not be right to share intimacies with one who was not to be her husband, but her desire was not driven by want of a mere affair. She wanted to know Josiah, a man who had been chosen for her by God’s own hand.
    Not a man her father had chosen for her, but one Anne had chosen for herself.
    Josiah’s door was drawn, but not latched. Anne cast another glance in the direction of the stairs. She fully expected to be caught standing outside his bedroom, but the house remained still. Carefully, she pushed open the door. As soon as her eyes adjusted to the deeper darkness, she stepped inside and quickly closed the door behind her.
    Josiah lay on his back, shirtless, with one hand tucked under his head. His dark hair was tousled and his face serene in sleep, but her attention did not linger there. Instead, she was drawn to the wide expanse of his chest, to his narrowed abdomen and the plane of his belly from which a line of hair trailed and disappeared into the waistband of his breeches.
    Entranced, she took a step closer, then another. Pale moonlight made him almost ethereal, but there was something so real about him. From the innocence of sleep, something powerful and raw emanated from this man. Something carnal.
    A light sensation tickled her hand. She looked to see his fingers grazing her. “Am I dreaming?” he murmured, his voice thick with sleep. He wound her fingers with his, and before she could answer he tugged her to sit on the edge of his bed.
    In their joined solitude existed the most incredible intimacy Anne had ever known. The worry and thrill of being caught with him were far overshadowed by the feel of his skin beneath her fingertips. Never had anyone looked at her as he did.
    In the dark and the quiet, her day-long preoccupation with his mother’s fate was lost.
    His voice barely above a whisper, he said, “Countless nights I have closed my eyes and dreamt of the beautiful girl I knew you to be. And though I knew your beauty would only grow in time, I am still struck by the woman you have become.” He reached for her with his free hand, cradling the side of her face. “Have you any idea how stunning you are?”
    Anne slowly shook her head, genuinely taken aback by his words.
    “If my last breath on this earth was in this moment,” he said quietly, “I could not ask for anything more.”
    Her fingertips fell to his chest, and when the intensity of his look overwhelmed her, her gaze followed. The rise and fall of his breath quickened, a rhythm matched by her racing pulse. That she could affect him in such a way left her unsteady, but he grounded her in a way no one else had. She cared not for the proximity of her parents or for the consequences of being caught in Josiah’s room. She wanted to feel .
    Her thundering heart might awaken the entire inn, but that did not deter her from wanting to know him. Her belly awash with flutters, she flattened her hand on his chest and reveled in the gallop of his heart. A sharp intake of breath affected her to her toes, though she knew not if it was hers or his.
    He withdrew his hand from her face, allowing his fingertips to trace her cheek before they trailed a path along her neck. They settled briefly on her collar bone, then drifted lower, just brushing the swell of her breast. This time she knew the breath was hers, and though her reaction jolted a smile from his lips, it quickly dissolved into such a somber, serious countenance that she worried something might be wrong.
    But no, not in that moment. It couldn’t be.
    He drew to a