Married to a Stranger. Louise Allen

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      Callum let her study him, his face as serious as hers must be, then he bent his head and took her mouth. Sophia almost jumped at the intrusion of his tongue between her lips, the pressure that opened them to him. Was this normal? It felt indecently intimate. She quivered and his arm tightened around her, supporting her, almost, not quite, constraining her. He felt very determined.

      She could taste him, which was shocking. And she could smell him, which was even more so. He was clean, of course, but under the smell of ironed linen and good soap there was something dangerous and faintly musky, overlain by spice and sandalwood.

      He was holding her very firmly, which might have been frightening. Sophia flirted for a moment with a feeling of alarm, the instinct to struggle, then let herself relax into Callum’s hold. He was too strong to fight. His mouth was insistent now and she let him do as he wished, and, increasingly, what she wished, as her tongue learned to play with his.

      It made her body feel most strange. There was an ache, low down, and the urge to mould herself tightly against him there as though that would ease it. She realised that his body was hard against her belly and that was … worrying. It made the ache worse and so did pressing against him. Then Callum’s hand cupped her breast and he began to play with her nipple through the fabric of her bodice and the ache turned into a stab of sensation that had her whimpering into his mouth.

      This is far more than I expected. Far more. But it was a fleeting thought, easily dismissed. This was the man she was going to … no, might marry. She must learn to respond to his lovemaking. Then the kiss deepened, became more demanding, and Sophia lost awareness of everything except the sensation that was singing through her, the strength of Callum’s hold, the urgency of their bodies. So this was proper kissing … She was drowning. It was overwhelming.

      ‘Sophia?’

      ‘Oh.’ Callum had stopped kissing her. How long had she been standing there, her brain reeling, her heart pounding and her senses quite disordered? What must he think of her? She wanted to run and hide, from herself as much as him.

      ‘Have you ever been kissed before?’

      She blinked and he came into focus. He looked pleased with himself and faintly amused. Amused by her old-maidish ignorance, she supposed.

      ‘Not like that, no.’ It seemed she could articulate, at least.

      ‘Dan never—’

      ‘Certainly not. We kissed … but it was different. We kissed a little and held hands. He put his arms around me. He touched my … my breasts once.’ She felt her cheeks getting hot. She wanted Callum to kiss her again, to touch her. And he knew it. He must be feeling sorry for her, poor frustrated spinster that she was.

      Gradually her pulse calmed and she felt her colour rising under that steady gaze. She had very little experience of men, but she knew he was aroused. That was only to be expected, she supposed. But had he thought she was so … so desperate? Frustrated? Potentially wanton that she needed to be kissed until her legs trembled?

      She felt the anger sweep through her and know it was for herself, not really for him. She had been frustrated and she had not realised. She had been desperate for a man’s caresses. What might she have done if he had not stopped—or would the apprehension that was trembling just under the confused desire have made her flee?

      ‘Are you all right?’

      ‘No,’ Sophia said. ‘No, I do not think I am all right. What have you done to me?’

      ‘Kissed you,’ he said. ‘There is some basic attraction between us, I think.’ From the way he smiled he seemed to find that amusing. ‘Sophia, that was passion, that is all.’

      ‘Very basic,’ she snapped. ‘I am obviously far more ignorant and innocent than the women you are used to associating with,’ she added bitterly. ‘I did not want passion! I only wanted a kiss in a decent manner. There was no need to virtually ravish me,’ she hissed and slapped him, hard, right across his handsome face. She might not be heavy, but she was fit and tall and she put a great deal of feeling into the blow. It rocked him back on his heels, she was pleased to see.

      Callum lifted one hand to his face and touched his cheek with his fingertips. ‘A decent manner? That was the sort of kiss that lovers exchange. The sort of kiss married couples exchange. If I had wanted to ravish you, believe me, we would be on that bed by now.’

      Bereft of words, Sophia turned and walked down the stairs and out into the sunlight. And now she was going to have to sit beside Callum for half an hour, so close that she could feel the heat of his body next to hers and all the while he would be smirking with male superiority over reducing an ignorant spinster to such a pitiful puddle of need.

      The horses looked up and whickered softly at the slam of the front door and she stared at them in sudden speculation. Perhaps she was not trapped here after all. She could drive a gig with one horse. How much more difficult was it to drive a pair? These had been well exercised and seemed biddable enough.

      She ran across the clearing, untied the reins and climbed up on to the high seat. It took a moment to sort out two pairs of reins, but she had been watching Callum’s hands as he drove and she found the knack of it.

      ‘What the hell are you doing?’ He had come out at last, but there was the width of the clearing between them now. ‘Sophia!’

      ‘Get up.’ Sophia clicked her tongue and the pair responded as Callum began to run. She slapped the reins down and they broke into a trot, then a canter. As the carriage swayed up the rutted track she heard a shout behind her, but by now she was too concerned with not overturning the curricle to heed him.

      The track sloped uphill, which helped, and she had the pair steady by the time it turned on to the road. They settled into a walk again and she did not try for more speed. As it was, the instinct to hang on to the side of the vehicle with her free hand was hard to fight.

      But the pair’s docility calmed her. It left her with nothing to do but brood on what had just happened. How could he? Why did he not ask? But he did, in a way, a small voice cut into her tumbling, angry thoughts. He asked to kiss me, it was not his fault that I was so shamefully carried away by it. I gave myself up to his kisses far too easily. I did say I agreed.

      She managed a wry smile. Now she knew something about herself that was a revelation. She had felt physical desire and she had also been frightened by the force of it, the sheer physical power of him. His brother had never made her feel like this, needy and shy and confused and almost out of control of where her passions might take her. Memories of Daniel had not made her want to moan with frustration. The gentlemen she encountered at the modest country gatherings had never tempted her in the slightest, she admitted as she negotiated the village street and a flock of sheep. Her body kept murmuring that it expected more. Sophia tried not to listen to it. More meant surrendering everything to Callum Chatterton.

      ‘Confound the woman.’ Cal stopped at the top of the hill and surveyed the lane down to the village; it was mercifully free of wrecked carriages. The breath rasped in his lungs from running for a mile, but he took a grim satisfaction that he was not panting. He had dragged himself from the lethargy of grief and had thrown himself into physical activity, those past months in London. Boxing, fencing, riding. Sex. They had all helped heal him, helped bring some balance back as well as strengthening his body.

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