To Bed or to Wed by Sandra Sookoo Page A

his assault. Never had she felt consumed by a man before. He was what a man should be: strong, powerful, demanding. He wouldn’t let anyone cow him into feeble submission. Flutters filled her lower belly then became tremors of excitement mixed with alarm when he gripped her waist and lifted her, pressing her back against the door.
    “Nathan?” Her heavy-lidded eyes refused to open fully as pleasant lethargy weighted her limbs.
    “You poked the bear, my dear. Sometimes, he’s not willing to let the tender morsel scamper away.” He eased his lips along the column of her throat then licked at her collarbones, but the second he nipped the skin of her shoulder where it joined with her neck, Charlotte whimpered.
    Sensations swamped her. Liquid passion replaced the blood in her veins. Letting instinct guide her, she wrapped her legs around his waist and locked her ankles. She grazed the underside of his jaw with her teeth, wanting to bite him as he’d done her, but her courage deserted her at the last second. When he pressed her into the door, firmly holding her with the hard length of his body, she gasped as he rubbed against the center of her heat. A shudder of need moved through her core. Her heart tried to break free of her ribcage and still she teased his lips with hers, nipping, nibbling, sucking at his mouth and tongue as if the world would end in the next several minutes and she wished to go to her demise drowned in pleasure.
    “Lady rogue,” he murmured against her lips, right before dueling with her tongue. He slipped his hands beneath her gown , moved aside her petticoat and shift, and then caressed the backs of her thighs. “How far does your daring go, I wonder?”
    “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Wouldn’t she? This night had rapidly gotten out of hand, so much so that she teetered on the razor edge of scandal, and a bigger one than merely kissing him in the evergreen maze would have landed her in. But she couldn’t bring herself to call a halt. Her curiosity was bigger than her fear.
    “Actually, I would.” Nathan gripped her bare bottom. The heat from his fingers branded her backside and at the same time sent goose flesh sailing over her skin.
    “How far will you go, my lord?” Her whisper lacked conviction as if she wanted his persuading. She drew her fingers along the cool silk of his cravat, intending to unwork the complicated knot so she might taste the skin beneath, but he wrenched his head away.
    “Devil take it.” As if she’d suddenly contracted the plague, Nathan pulled from her, almost violently untangling her legs from his waist.
    Charlotte hit the floor, only wobbling a bit as her pudding-like knees tried to hold her upright. She reached for him to steady herself, but he backed away. Every sense felt heightened, strung taut, waiting for the breaking point. Words stuck to the tip of her tongue, and though she tried to say something, anything, into the heated, strained silence, she couldn’t.
    Nathan shoved a hand through his hair. “Get out of my study, right this moment.” Though he kept his voice low, the command reverberated in her chest. His eyes had a touch of wildness about them. “Do not, under any circumstances, seek me out again while you’re here.”
    With flaming cheeks and a vague sense of loss churning in her belly, Charlotte spun, fumbled with the latch then finally wrenched open the door. She fled into the dark-shrouded hall and didn’t look back until she’d gained the safety of the staircase. One thing was certain: her curiosity regarding the marquess was most certainly not satisfied.

 
     
     
    Chapter Four
     
     
    Bloody hell.
    Nathan clasped his hands behind his back as he stared out of his private sitting room on the upper floor. On the grounds below, Jamie, a young woman, as well as the same blond gentleman his nephew had been with in the maze set out across the snow-covered lawn toward the stables. At least there were three of them so nothing untoward