Dark Admirer by Charlotte Featherstone

This beautiful creature hadn’t a clue who or what he was. This one, she had gifted him with her generosity because she was beautiful, inside and out.
    “You examine me, Miss Eyre,” she read, her voice dropping down, making it sound husky and womanly to his ears. The words pulled him out of his thoughts and focused his attention once again on her lush mouth. “Do you think me handsome?”
    Their gazes collided over the top of her book. He’d love to ask her that question. What did she see when she looked at him? His sins, or his beauty? What did she see when she looked at his body, and she had, he’d felt her gaze skimming along his flesh more than once. Did she see the scars and the tattoos, or did she see a man’s body that could pleasure her, that could take her to heights of ecstasy she had never known. A man’s body that could keep her warm and safe. A body that hungered for hers. A body that yearned to be inside hers.
    “Do you think me handsome? ” he asked, the question nothing but a whisper in his mind. Of course, there was no reply, only the steady focus of her lovely green eyes on his face.
    She glanced away, then turned the page, unable to hide the yawn behind her small hand. It was late. She’d read to him for hours, and he’d allowed it because he’d been entranced by her, mesmerised by her beauty and the sound of her voice. It warmed him where the fire did not. It filled his body, where the food had not.
    She yawned once more, and he saw her lashes lower for the briefest of seconds before rising up sharply. Exhaustion had taken the colour from her cheeks, and he inched forward, crawling up to her slowly, carefully. He did not want to alarm her. He couldn’t bear the thought of her fearing him.
    “You are so tired, ” he said to her, despite knowing she couldn’t hear him. “And you have been so kind to me tonight. Let me repay that kindness.”
    She allowed him to take the book from her hands and lay it beside her on the floor. When she looked up at him, he couldn’t resist the urge to cup her cheek in his palm. It was warm and buttery soft in his callused hand. He heard the increased rhythm of her heart, smelt the scent of her body as her blood heated her pulse points. Fear, perhaps. Or maybe something else. Maybe it was the first stirring of desire.
    He allowed his thumb to draw a lazy pattern along her cheek, then over to her nose where he drew a line down her small straight bridge, before sweeping up to her eyes, where it traced her perfectly arched blonde eyebrows. Her eyes closed then and he saw her lips part, as well as felt her breath against his palm. Slowly, her head tipped back, and he caught it with his free hand and cupped the back of her head in his hand, pressing in closer until he was straddling her hips with the insides of his thighs, and his chest was brushing up against her warm, soft body.
    He continued his exploration of her face, watching as she sank further into a sleep. His fingers brushed along her lips, back and forth, he followed the seam of her mouth, feeling their petal like softness grazing his hard flesh. He watched the flicker of her lashes, rendered a light coppery colour from the firelight. He pressed in, drawn to her mouth, to the lushness, the softness, the secrets hidden there, inside her mouth.
    His was about to kiss her, when he caught himself. His mouth was covered in sin. He was dirty, much too dirty and corrupt to be kissing these perfect lips. But he could not break away, could not make himself leave her and return to his spot against the wall. She felt too right in his hands. So, instead, he placed the right side of his face—the beautiful, untainted side—against her cheek, and brushed her skin against his. Closing his eyes, he allowed her softness to envelop him, allowed his mind to imagine himself kissing her, looking as he once did.
    How much she would want him if he looked like he once had. How much she would desire to share her body with