Read Passion Over Time for Free Online

glanced up and for a moment, she had a sense of disbelief. He couldn’t be the same gentleman who had made such heated, passionate love to her in his carriage. Oh, he possessed the same midnight-black hair and hard-boned handsomeness, but this man was a stranger.
    A laughing stranger with a ruthless set to his jaw and eyes cold as agates.
    Her heart leapt into her throat. What was she doing here?
    He focused on her with hawk-like intensity and she sucked in her breath. Apprehension tingled in her belly and the sensation radiated through her body out to her fingers and toes.
    His companions stopped talking, their gazes followed his. The one to his right was a short, dark-haired man with an overripe red mouth and obsidian eyes. To his left was an older man, tall and spare with thin lips and a beak-like nose.
    The two other men couldn’t possibly see her face through the widow’s veil she wore, but even so, their cold, hard stares bored into her. Nothing like the tame, pampered gentlemen she knew from working at Mrs. Bickle’s Inn, their power seemed to pulsate in the air. A cold power used to having its wants immediately assuaged. A power jaded with itself, empty and hungry for anything novel to fill it up.
    A sensation like a blizzard of frozen mosquitoes descending upon her, their icy legs skittering over her scalp, prickling and biting their way down her back, crawled over her. Her heart pounded her ribcage and she turned and fled.
    In the corridor, she leaned against the wall, closed her eyes then hugged herself and shuddered all over. She’d read those two other men’s thoughts in their eyes. They had the means to buy and sell human lives. The capacity to suck one’s soul dry and take pleasure in it.
    Was Grey like them? Had she made a terrible mistake? What was she doing here? Cold sweat and nausea threatened to overtake her and she forced herself to draw deep, slow breaths.
    You are being silly. They are as mortal as you.
    But no one had ever looked at her like that. As if she were a slave on the block. Run, just run and forget this insanity.
    With her eyes on the stairs, she picked up her skirts—too late. The sound of boots echoed on the hardwood floor. Her heartbeat galloped away from her. Oh, she was a damned fool. Tricked by lust into thinking this was safe. Snared in her passions like a senseless hare. Yet pride demanded she stand to face him, not flee like some silly girl.
    Anyhow, it was her decision to be here. She was in control. That was what mattered most.
    The boot falls stopped and her mouth dried. A tingling rush swept through her stomach, but whether it was of anxiety or anticipation, she didn’t know. She turned and saw the tall, dark shadow looming over her.

 
    Chapter Three
     
     
    Cool air passed over Beth’s sweat-dampened face as her black widow’s veil was lifted away, leaving a delicious sort of weakness in its wake. Sexton’s eyes shone luminous silver, reflecting the starlight of her dreams and taking her breath.
    His shaving soap—a nuanced blend of citrus and spice with an underlying note of musk, mingled with crisp, fresh linen—evoked a sense of solace, as if she’d been living for nothing else since they’d parted.
    He exuded wealth and power. His cravat glowed, blinding white against the dark blue of his jacket, so stiffly starched, so perfectly tied it appeared carved from marble. The thrust of his clean-shaven jaw seemed almost ruthlessly arrogant.
    “Thank God it’s you, else I expect I’d have my face soundly slapped by now.” His deep voice resonated in her belly.
    Neither of them laughed. The tension, sharp as a knife’s tip held to her throat, rendered her speechless.
    “I am sorry they directed you to the dining hall. Most indelicate. Someone should have come and fetched me instead.”
    Inwardly, she shuddered at the memory of so many curious male eyes upon her. “It’s no matter now.”
    “Are you hungry?” he asked, his tone front-parlor