The Widow Wager by Jess Michaels

so.”
    “And become a monster in every sense,” he mused. He felt close enough to that edge as it was when he considered…
    Well, everything he didn’t want to consider. That he couldn’t consider when faced with this decision.
    “What do you propose, then?” she asked.
    He cleared his mind of all the tangled thoughts that troubled him, took a deep breath and merely looked at the woman in front of him. She was undeniably one of the most beautiful creatures he had ever had the pleasure to look at. Beyond her beauty, though, there was something else. A quality that drew him in. Perhaps it was strength or resiliency or something else that he could not name.
    He was drawn to her. And that draw had turned into full-blown desire when she talked about sex and her enjoyment of the acts in the bedroom. Though she had been embarrassed to reveal those telling secrets, he had seen the glimmer in her eyes. The need that had obviously gone unfulfilled for far longer than her husband had been dead.
    It was a need he could very easily satisfy now. Every night. For a very long time before he bored of her. Having a willing—dare he say wanton?—wife would go far in making up for the shackles a marriage meant to him.
    And it would save her from ruin. Save his family from despair. Since there was no other good choice at present, he knew what he had to do.
    “We are stuck, my lady.” He smiled as he corrected himself. “ Gemma . I think you know that as well as I do.”
    She nodded. “I do, Mr. Flynn.”
    “Crispin,” he said softly. “It’s time you started calling me Crispin.”
    She squeezed her eyes shut as if she knew what crossing the line into that familiarity meant. “Crispin,” she finally repeated on a rough whisper.
    God, he wanted to make her say his name like that out of pleasure instead of pain and resignation.
    “But it does not have to be horrible,” he continued, moving toward her. “I am not like your husband.”
    She caught her breath. “I hope you will not be.”
    “I won’t. I guarantee it. I have no care in the world if you provide me with heirs and I would not think to punish you if you didn’t.”
    She nodded slowly, but he could see she didn’t truly understand his meaning.
    “But that isn’t what I’m saying. Your husband was apparently of a delicate nature. Giving you pleasure was a chore he completed, I suppose. And when you demanded it, he wasn’t able to oblige.” Now he reached out and dragged his hand against her cheek. Her skin was impossibly soft and he almost growled as he stroked it. “I am able. And I would not see making you quake and moan and beg as a chore.”
    Her breasts lifted up and down at a wild pace thanks to her short breath, and Crispin smiled as her pupils dilated. She wanted him. And that desire only increased his own.
    “We can be as strenuous as you like,” he continued, sliding his fingers into her hair and gripping the base of her skull firmly but gently. He tilted her face up, molding her against him so that he knew she felt his erection against her belly. “In fact, I would insist on it. I will make you come, Gemma. I will make you scream. I will enjoy every damn moment of it.”
    He expected her to agree or disagree to these things, to say something at all. But to his surprise, she instead launched herself against him, crushing her mouth to his in a heated, desperate kiss.
    He caught her seeking tongue in his mouth and sucked hard as he tightened his embrace and took back over in his seduction. She moaned into his mouth, arching her hips as she tangled her tongue with his. He couldn’t help but respond to her ardor, even though he was surprised by it. Despite her confessions about wanting to be pleasured, most ladies did not act with such abandon.
    He counted himself lucky, in that moment, that he had found one who did. It was intoxicating. So intoxicating that he backed her across the room until he lowered her onto the settee. She relaxed back, her