The Next Santini Bride. Maureen Child

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СКАЧАТЬ her. Her heart galloped, and she sucked in a gulp of air before opening the car door with a shaky hand. Then she looked directly into those amazing eyes of his and said, “You can follow me to my house.”

      He gave her a slow smile and nodded. “I’ll be right behind you.”

      Three

      Damn. He felt as keyed up as some randy teenager in the back seat of his father’s Buick. Dan kept his gaze locked on Angela’s taillights as she drove along the narrow streets toward her home. She made a left, turning onto a residential block that even in the darkness looked quiet and cozy. A Leave It to Beaver kind of neighborhood that ordinarily would have set off his internal radar and had him running in the opposite direction.

      But not tonight.

      Tonight there was nowhere else he’d rather be. Angela Jackson had dogged his mind and haunted his every thought since the moment he’d met her, and now he had to have her. If she’d sent him away, he would have had to crawl. His body was so eager for the joining that a no from her might have killed him.

      Expectation whispered inside him and his body, already hard and ready, tensed further as she signaled a left turn into a driveway.

      He glanced at the California bungalow-style house as he passed it. Then, making a U-turn in the middle of the block, he came back around and parked at the curb. Shutting off the engine, he took a moment to listen to the profound stillness. Slowly he swiveled his head to watch her climb out of her car.

      Silhouetted against the backdrop of the porch light, he couldn’t see her face, but he read her tension in every line of her body. Her tall, slim figure swayed a bit, and her floor-length skirt rippled around her.

      Grabbing his keys, he got out of the car, locked it and shut the door with a solid thump that seemed to echo off the silent houses staring at him with dark windowpane eyes. Walking around the back of his car, he headed toward her. She didn’t move, simply stood there, waiting for him.

      His heart thundered in his chest, and when he came close enough to read her expression, even that beat accelerated. Desire, need, hunger, all shone in her eyes, feeding the emotions nearly strangling him.

      He reached out and laid one hand on her forearm. She shivered. Whether from eagerness or hesitation, he couldn’t be sure. To satisfy the gentleman still crouched at the feet of the beast within, he forced himself to say softly, “Angela, if you don’t want this, just say so.”

      She laughed shortly and tipped her head back to look up at him. “Want it?” she repeated, her voice thick and husky. “Dan, I want it so much it scares me.”

      That’s all he needed to know. Turning her around, he led her toward the house and the brightly lit porch. They took the steps together, already moving as one, setting an unconscious rhythm. She fumbled with the keys, dropped them and Dan bent down to scoop them up.

      “That one,” she said.

      He nodded, jammed it home and turned it. The lock snicked open, he turned the knob and ushered her inside. He stepped in right behind her, closed and locked the door, then turned to look at her.

      Their gazes locked.

      A heartbeat passed, then another.

      Angela dropped her purse.

      He let the keys clatter to the hardwood floor.

      Then she was in his arms. He didn’t know how she got there. He didn’t remember moving toward her. He didn’t know or care how they’d come together. He only knew that he couldn’t seem to hold her close enough.

      Taking her mouth, he plundered her, parting her lips with his tongue, sweeping past any defenses she might have raised if she’d had time to think. He claimed her mouth fiercely, thoroughly. Again and again, his tongue mated with hers, twisting, twining, exploring and tasting. He sought her treasures, her secrets, and once he found them, searched for more. His hands moved up and down her back, over the curve of her behind where his fingers grabbed hold and squeezed, pulling her tightly to him.

      Pressing her body to the straining, hard arousal that had tortured him all night brought a wave of pleasure so deep and rich it staggered him. He wanted more. He wanted it all.

      Shifting his hands to the front of her dress, he slid them up, up past the swell of her breasts, to the wide collar that dipped so enticingly across her shoulders. He skimmed his fingertips across her skin and smiled to himself when she trembled in his grasp.

      He tore his mouth from hers, and while she struggled to draw air into heaving lungs, he bent his head to kiss the curve of her neck. To taste the warmth of her skin, to tantalize her as she did him.

      “Oh, my,” she said on a short sigh, and tipped her head to one side, “that feels so—”

      “Good,” he finished for her.

      “Beyond good,” she assured him and leaned into him, pressing her breasts against his chest.

      “I want to feel you,” he said, letting his hands slide to the zipper at the back of her dress.

      “Oh, yeah,” she muttered, “that’d be good.”

      He smiled and tugged at the zipper, letting his fingertips trail along the line of exposed flesh as he went.

      She shivered, and he groaned. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and that fact fed the fires. Nothing stood between him and the feel of her breasts in his palms. The zipper went down, down, to just above the curve of her butt. Smooth skin called out for his touch and he obliged. Running his palms up and down her back, he worked the dress off and let it drop to a pool at her feet.

      Angela stepped out of the fabric and kicked it aside.

      The chill air in the room crawled over her body, and she hardly felt it. Her blood was boiling, and that was enough to keep her warm. She watched him watch her, and for the first time in years, worried about the lacy pattern of stretch marks across her not-entirely flat belly.

      She wasn’t exactly a cover model, after all. But when he lifted his hands and cupped her breasts, she stopped thinking. Who could care about stretch marks when his thumbs were stroking her already-pebbled nipples?

      Angela rocked on her heels and closed her eyes. Sensation after sensation poured through her. From the top of her head to the tips of her toes, she was awash in the glory of feeling. It had been so long, so terribly long since her body had known the touch of a man.

      She opened her eyes again and looked up into his heated gaze. Apparently, the same hunger tearing through her had a grip on him, too. Boldly, she reached up and fumbled with the brass buttons on his uniform tunic. Licking her lips, breathing hard, she worked at them until the Dress-Blue jacket was unbuttoned, unbelted, hanging open. She laid the flat of her hands against his white T-shirt-covered chest and felt the slam of his heartbeat against her palm.

      Then he growled…actually growled…and yanked her to him. In seconds the rest of their clothes were gone, tossed aside, and she was held flush against his warm, naked, outrageously muscled body.

      His hands swept up and down her back, then up and around to caress her breasts again. Every square inch of her body was electrified. Every nerve pushed to its breaking point. Desperate need coiled within her, building, growing, СКАЧАТЬ