Captivated

'Do you prefer a different name, Robert?'

'Prick.'

Hot color flooded Abigail's face at the explicit word that she had only ever been exposed to in print. 'Battering ram.'

'Cock.'

'Jacob staff.'

Robert threw his head back and laughed in that purely masculine, uninhibited way of his. 'Wherever did you learn such phrases? Never mind. Your erotica. You were quite enraptured when I peeked through the window last night. What were you reading about?'

Before Abigail could reply, Robert crawled over her and stood up on the floor.

She watched the sway of his testicles with interest as he leaned over the foot of the bed. They were rather hairyand oddly touching; man at his most vulnerable. And exposed.

He was all too aware of her interesthis gray eyes, when he turned around, glinted. He held up a copy ofThePearl.

'Is this the one you were reading?'

'What number is it?'

'Twelve. Do you have them all?'

She flipped the quilt over her naked body. 'Yes.'

He flipped the quilt away from her. 'Come over to the window.'

She gazed at the front of him. He had gone from limp to hard. 'Why?'

'I want you to read to me.'

Abigail's mouth dropped open. 'Absolutely not.'

'Ashamed, Abigail?'

She closed her eyes against the truth. Shewas ashamed. That she had desires. And pursued those desires.

She opened her eyes. 'No, I am not ashamed. Merely feeling very vulnerable. It's not every day that a woman shares her secret life.'

Robert's dark face hardenedshe could imagine that look on his face before he killed. Without warning, he reached down and grasped her hand in his, his skin hard where hers was soft, calloused where hers was smooth.

For a second she felt trapped. And knew that he, too, was trapped by the desires that, for however long the storm lasted, were neither his nor hers, but theirs.

He pulled her across the bed and up to her feet.

'Go stand by the window No, the other window.'

Abigail skirted the cupboard and stood uncertainly in front of the surviving window on the opposite side of the door. The open curtains offered neither warmth nor concealment.

Robert deposited a chair in front of the window. 'Sit down.'

Abigail primly sat down with her back toward the light. The wood was cold and hard against skin that was flaming hot and achingly sensitive.

Robert dropped a pillow onto the floor, then dropped down on his knees in front of the chair. He held out the journal.

'Turn to the page you were reading when I walked in on you last night.'

She flipped through the pages. The murky light penetrating the window blurred the print, as if the only thing real in the room was her… and him.

'Have you found it?'

'Yes.'

'Start reading exactly where you left off. But first tell me what happened before, so I can follow the story.'

She cleared her throat. 'The story is called 'La Rose D'Amour; Or the Adventures of a Gentleman in search of Pleasure. Translated from the French.' The man, Louis, is forming aa harem of women, and he has kidnapped Laura, a virgin. When I stopped reading, he was in the process of persuading Laura of the pleasures to be had if she travels with him and allows him to deflower her.'

Robert leaned closer, cocooning her in his body heat. A single drop of desire bridged her knee and his manhood. 'How was Louis persuading Laura?'

Abigail inhaledsmelling him, smelling her. And stared into his stark gray eyes mere inches away from her own. 'He had his finger in her cream jug.'

The expected laughter did not appear, only a blazing heat that took her breath away. Holding her gaze, he grabbed her hips and pulled her forward in the chair until her buttocks were draped over the edge of the seat.

Gasping in surprise, she dropped the journal and grabbed the sides of the wooden seat.

He promptly picked up the journal. Prying her right hand free of the chair, he clasped her fingers around it. 'Read, Abigail.'

It was one thing for Robert to be aware of her collection of erotica; it was an entirely different thing to read it aloud.

'Robert. I really think I would preferyou to read.'

'Not part of the bargain, Abigail.' His voice was as intractable as his expression. 'I want to hearyou.'

'Is that all you want?' she asked tartly.

'No, Abigail, I want far more than thatI want you to share your secret life with me. Tell me when you end a paragraph.'

Licking lips that were suddenly as dry as the paper she was holding, she found the appropriate page and raised the journal to best catch the light. Her breasts bobbed up and down on her stomach with each breath she took. She had a curious feeling of d e j a vu, looking at the black print.

'My desires were excited to the highest pitch. I depicted to her the pleasure she would experience when, after arriving at the chateau, I should deflower her of her virginity, and triumphantly carry off her maidenhead on the head of this, 'dear Laura,' I said, as I took one of her hands and clasped it round my'Abigail took a deep breath, uttered the forbidden word'prick. 'Then,' said I, 'you will know all the joys and pleasures of a real,' ' she took another deep breath, ' 'fuck.' '

Hard, hot, calloused thumbs dug into the tops of her thighs.

Abigail peered over the top of the journal. He was waiting for her.

'I finished the paragraph.'

'Read on.' His voice was dark and low and gravelly.

The fluttering inside her stomach traveled to her heart.

' 'You will then,' I continued,' Abigail read on in a ragged voice that bore little resemblance to her own, ' 'experience all the sweet confusion, far different from what you now feel, of stretching wide apart your thighs to receive man between them, to feel his warm, naked body joined to yours, the delicious preparatory toying with your breasts, the hot kisses lavished on them and on your lips, his roving tongue to force its way between your rosy lips in search of yours, the delicious meeting of them, their rolling about and tickling each other as mine now does yours,' at the same time thrusting my tongue to meet hers.'

Abigail's voice died away on a moan of wind. Heat flooded her body: A mingling of embarrassment and desire.

Without warning, Robert stretched wide her thighs. Cold air invaded her most private parts. It was immediately replaced by heatthe touch of a finger.

'You're wet, Abigail. Is this what happens when you read to yourself?'

She shivered, feeling more exposed than she ever had in her life. 'Yes.'

The hard, naked strength of his body pressed into the vee of her thighs. 'Move the journal.'

She loweredThePearl.

His mouth swooped down on her right breast, scorching hot and wet. It felt as though he was trying to swallow her whole. Hard, hot fingers closed around the soft mound, squeezed it to fit more deeply inside his