The Count's Secret Child. Jennie Lucas

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СКАЧАТЬ a sonorous bang.

      Carrie was alone inside the castle. With her baby. And with Théo. Her hands shook as she looked around, trying to calm her fiercely beating heart.

      The shadows of the silent castle were all around her. As she looked at all the dark hallways leading off the foyer, memories went through her like waves. She heard the echoes of their playful lovers’ laughter, like ghosts of their former happiness.

      Down that hall, she remembered, Théo had fed her strawberries and champagne in the glorious warmth and flowers of the summer garden. Through that door, in the two-story library, he’d read her poems in French. She’d felt the dark heat of Théo’s eyes, heard the beauty of the language as it shaped his beautiful, sensual lips. She hadn’t understood his words, but she’d known their meaning: desire.

      Carrie’s eyes fell on the sweeping staircase. He’d carried her up those stairs as if she weighed nothing at all. He’d laid her upon his enormous bed and he’d seduced her, taking her virginity, kissing and suckling and soaring her to the heights of ecstasy. She wrapped her arms around her jean jacket. She could still feel his arms, feel his lips, feel his hard muscular body against hers as he’d pressed her back on the bed and caressed her naked skin as she trembled and shook and cried out beneath him….

      She heard a noise behind her, and whirled around with a low gasp.

      Théo St. Raphaël, Comte de Castelnau and lord of Gavaudan Castle, stood in the open doorway, his powerful body a dark shadow.

      “Théo.” She whispered his name with the French pronunciation—hard T, silent H.

      He was breathtaking, almost terrifying in his masculine beauty. He was so dark. Black hair, black trousers, black shirt open at the neck. Dark stubble covered the hard line of his jaw. But it was the expression in his piercing eyes that was darkest of all.

      Across the shadowy foyer, his black eyes glittered at her. “Enfin.”

      His low, deep voice went through her like a hot knife through her heart. Carrie couldn’t move. Couldn’t even breathe as he moved toward her, stalking her, never taking his eyes from hers.

      “I have waited.” Stopping in front of her, he looked down at her. “For too long,” he murmured, “I have wanted you.”

      She could hardly believe she was standing in front of him now, close enough to feel the warmth of his body. She had to tilt her head way back to look up into his hard, handsome face. Théo. A lump rose in her throat. Théo, in the flesh. The man she’d once loved, the man who’d left her, the man who’d dropped her so completely he’d never even given her the chance to tell him she was pregnant.

      For almost a year Carrie had dreamed of what she would say to him if she ever saw him again. She had a little speech prepared, practiced many times during long, lonely nights, that she planned to deliver in the same cold, dispassionate tone that he’d used when he’d left her that morning in the hotel room.

      But in the shock of the moment her entire speech fled from her mind. She felt overwhelmed by the intensity of his closeness. Her body trembled from her hair to her earlobes to her toes as she looked into his darkly handsome face.

      He reached out a hand and stroked along the top edge of her shoulder, over her jean jacket, up her neck to her cheek. Cupping her face, he tilted up her chin, and she couldn’t fight. Couldn’t even protest. She just trembled.

      “Now, at last,” he whispered, lowering his mouth to hers, “you will be mine.”

      And, ruthlessly, he kissed her.

      His lips were hot and hard against hers, bruising her mouth, sending sparks of electric current sizzling down the length of her body. As one of his hands roughly cupped her chin, his other arm wrapped around her body, holding her tight, pressing her breasts against his muscular chest. She felt trapped, overpowered by the strength of his body, by the force of his overwhelming hunger. And out of nowhere she suddenly realized that, against her will, she was kissing him back.

      His lips gentled against hers, caressing and luring where a moment before they had demanded and roughly taken. She felt his tongue flick against hers, luring her into a deeper sensuality as his hand stroked lightly against the skin of her cheek. She felt feminine, vulnerable beneath his masculine power.

      His hand tilted back her head, exposing her throat. His fingers moved through her hair as he kissed down her neck. A gasp of surrender escaped her as his lips moved down her skin. His caress was smooth as silk, his jawline and upper lip rough as sandpaper, and as he nipped at the sensitive corner between her neck and shoulder all her nerve endings sizzled. Her breathing was hoarse and she sagged in his arms. Her eyes were closed, her body shivering with need from a year of repressed, agonized desire.

      “I missed you, ma petite,” Théo whispered, his lips brushing her ear. “And I see you missed me.”

      She’d missed him?

      Carrie’s eyes flew open at his smug male satisfaction. She remembered months of ignored messages, the nights she’d spent sobbing for him with a broken heart after he’d deserted her without explanation. Pride stiffened her body. With a gasp, she ripped away from him, drawing back her hand in fury.

      But before she could give him the slap he deserved he caught her wrist. Amusement twisted his sensual lips. “So you did not miss me quite as much as I missed you, hein?”

      Glaring at him, she yanked her hand from his grasp, angry at the way he’d kissed her—and the way she’d allowed him to do it! He clearly believed she was still the naïve girl she’d been last year—still ripe for the taking, still putty in his hands! He obviously assumed she’d spent the past year dreaming of him. And she hadn’t dreamed of him. Not for weeks now!

      She lifted her chin furiously. “You think you can just kiss me and I’ll swoon into your arms?”

      He lifted a dark eyebrow. “No?”

      Carrie sucked in her breath at the arrogant expression on his wickedly handsome face. “You have no right to kiss me. No right to even touch me!”

      “Perhaps I have no right.” Looking at her, he gave a low laugh. “But you are here.”

      “You left me no choice—your bodyguard gave me no notice!”

      “He asked you to come to Gavaudan, and you agreed.” Reaching out, Théo took her hand. She tried to resist, but he was too strong. She felt the sizzling heat of his palm against hers and a sizzle spread down her skin. “And what am I to make of that, chérie, except that you have wanted me just as I have wanted you?”

      “Wanted me?” Her voice shook with incredulous anger. “You left without a word and never returned any of my messages—for a year!”

      He reached out a hand to stroke her cheek. “I never stopped wanting you, Carrie,” he said in a low voice. “I left because you broke the rules. But I think we both understand each other now. This time there will be no more talk of love, yes?”

      A bitter laugh escaped her. “Believe me. There is absolutely no way I’d ever love you again.”

      “Good.” He smiled. “In that case, there is no reason for us to be apart. No reason for us to continue to suffer from unrequited desire.” His hands slowly moved СКАЧАТЬ