Rags To Riches Collection. Rebecca Winters

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СКАЧАТЬ no longer be the object of all those furtive glances, those consoling pats on the arm, those ‘poor Nicola’ comments! Something inside her lifted.

      Was he serious—all she had to do was be Christmassy? She stuck out a hand before he could change his mind. ‘You have yourself a deal.’

      He closed his hand around hers. His grip was firm and she could feel the way he tempered his strength so as to not crush her fingers. He didn’t let go again immediately and her heart started up its silly pounding and erratic fluttering again.

      ‘Nicola...’

      Her name was a caress in the warm night air. Brad had never uttered her name like that. Her heart pounded louder, harder. ‘Yes?’

      ‘I know your confidence has taken a beating, and I respect the fact that you’d like to get fit, but as for your weight...and everything else, I don’t think you need to change a damn thing.’

      For a moment she actually believed he was sincere.

      Oh, Nicola Ann, the man’s a comedian!

      She flinched as she imagined her mother’s scornful laughter. She pulled her hand from his and leapt up, moving across to the nearest veranda post. She wrapped her hands around it. ‘Is that a way of saying you’ll help me with my makeover plan, but as you don’t think I need to change there’s nothing you need to actually do?’

      ‘Damn it, no!’

      He shot to his feet and strode across to her, gripping her chin in his hand to force her to meet his gaze. ‘You’re a hell of an infuriating woman, you know that?’

      Infuriating was better than pitiful.

      His face softened as he stared down at her. ‘Sorry,’ he murmured, his touch on her chin becoming gentle. ‘I shouldn’t have snapped.’

      ‘I...um...’ She swallowed. ‘I’m probably a touch sensitive,’ she allowed.

      ‘A person doesn’t bounce back just like that after the kind of blow you’ve suffered, Nicola. But you don’t need to change and eventually you’ll see I’m right.’

      She doubted that, but she couldn’t utter a single sound. Under his fingers her skin had leapt to life. His thumb traced the skin beneath her bottom lip. It made her drag in a breath that made her whole body tremble.

      ‘You have the most amazing eyes I have ever seen,’ he murmured.

      It wasn’t her eyes he was staring at, but her mouth. And he was staring at it as if he was hungry, as if he was starved. That gaze held her spellbound. It promptly cut off her mother’s disbelieving comments and hurtful contradictions. She should step away. She should flee. She knew that in some deep, dark recess of her mind, but her hand curled about the veranda post all the more tightly to anchor her into place.

      Cade had become the brightest star in the night and she wanted to bask in the glow of his warmth and his...desire. Even if for only ten seconds more.

      His free hand travelled down the post until he found her hand. He closed it around hers. He stepped in so close their chests touched. ‘You smell like strawberry jam.’

      She tried to ask him if that was a good thing, but her throat wouldn’t work. All that happened was her lips parted.

      And that he saw them part.

      And knew what it meant.

      His eyes glittered. His mouth took on a wolfish edge of satisfaction. He brushed his thumb over her bottom lip. She gasped and a low rumble of approval emerged from his chest.

      ‘Amazing eyes,’ he repeated. ‘Hair that shines in the starlight.’ His thumb stopped alternately tormenting and pleasing her lips as his hand drifted around the back of her neck to slide into the hair at the base of her skull. He tipped her head back so he could devour her face with his gaze, and she let him.

      He was going to kiss her. She knew he was going to kiss her. She hovered between breaths, waiting for it, waiting to welcome it...hungering for it.

      And from the glittering satisfaction in his eyes she could tell that he’d read that thought in her eyes—that she wanted it as much as he did, that there would be no argument or resistance.

      His mouth descended. The pressure of his hand at her nape partly lifted her to meet him, demanded that she meet him.

      And she did, with her lips ready to taste him completely.

      The kiss was not tentative on either side—it was assured and demanding. Nicola was twenty-seven years old but she had never had such a blatantly adult kiss in all that time.

      Had never enjoyed such a blatantly adult kiss. There was no game playing and no teasing or preliminaries. A question had been asked. An answer given. And then the thorough enjoyment, a wholehearted participation in the slaking of a mutual need.

      And the pleasure rocked her to her toes. She clutched his upper arms, not aware of when she’d moved, his heat and strength rippling through the thin cotton of his shirt to her palms and fingers, filling her with a sense of invincibility. His arm snaked around her waist—to pull her more firmly against him or to give her support? She didn’t know and she didn’t care. She was simply grateful that it gave her the freedom to dance her fingers across his throat, to smooth them over his shoulders and then plunge them into his hair to pull him closer.

      The kiss went on and on and it filled her with energy and strength and the yearning for more...so much more!

      Eventually Cade lifted his head, but he didn’t remove his arm from around her waist. She didn’t remove hers from around his neck. She met his gaze head on. With Cade she didn’t need to be coy.

      His eyes didn’t waver from hers. ‘If this goes on for much longer we’re going to get to the point of no return,’ he rasped out.

      She nodded.

      His chest, pressed to hers, rose and fell. ‘I need to think about that.’

      So did she.

      In unspoken agreement they unclasped each other. Nicola moved back to the bench as reaction set in and her knees started to shake.

      Did she want to take this any further? Did she want to go all the way with Cade? Oh, her body was in no doubt but what about her brain...and her heart?

      He didn’t turn from where she’d left him. ‘I’m not ready for anything serious.’ He spoke to the night, but she knew the words were meant for her.

      After all he’d revealed about his marriage and Fran, she wasn’t surprised. ‘I’m not either.’ It was the truth.

      He turned. She could read the question in his eyes.

      She’d come out here to focus on getting her life back together. A holiday fling, however brief, would deflect her from that. And her plan for self-improvement was important to her. She didn’t want to be the doormat her friends thought her or the failure her mother considered her.

      She stood, her knees finally steady. ‘No.’

      She СКАЧАТЬ