A Scandalous Melody. Linda Conrad

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СКАЧАТЬ gaze locked with hers as his hard, glinting concern turned in seconds to pure lustful longing. “You need to stop the bleeding first, then clean the wound.”

      Turning his attention back to her bloody cut, Chase lifted her hand to his lips and slipped the oozing finger into his mouth before she could stop him.

      She heard herself gasp and then moan as the sensation of his tongue and lips on her finger became sensual and demanding. Everything else but the two of them and this minute faded into the background.

      But a boom of thunder cracked through the air just then and the skies opened up for one more splash of rain. The sound and the chill dragged her back to the present in a hurry.

      She tugged on her hand again, and Chase released her. “I’ll have it bandaged when I get home.”

      He stood and pulled her to her feet. “Come under the terrace cover, Kate. You’re getting soaked.”

      “I won’t keep you much longer. It’s getting late,” she told him as they ran for a drier spot. “But I…I still have to plead with you to let Shelby and her daughter continue to stay in the guest cottage. I don’t care about myself. I can find somewhere else to go, but for them…”

      Dragging her up close to his body, he leaned down to whisper in her ear so that she could hear him over the noise of the rain. “What’s it worth to you, chère?”

      She stiffened and looked up at him. Their bodies were touching. Sweat, heated rainwater and passion came off them in waves, steaming up the air between them. Coming here tonight had obviously been a big mistake.

      But she had to keep trying, for Maddie’s sake. “I beg you, Chase. Please just consider it.” She looked down between them, away from his demanding gaze. But one look made it clear that her aching breasts were peaked and pushing against her cotton blouse, begging for his touch.

      Chase saw it as well and leered down at her. “Ah, yes, bébé, I can feel the heat between us, too. Odd isn’t it, that an ice princess could flare so easily for a ghost?”

      He didn’t know? He couldn’t just look at her and see that her heart still longed for him and that her body still responded to his with no provocation at all?

      Her heart pounded in her chest, but she pushed away from him. “Dammit. Tell me what I can do to make you change your mind and let Shelby and the baby stay.”

      “Do?” he asked thoughtfully after a minute. “Ante up, Kate. It’s time to put in or fold. I want you.”

      “Me?” Her knees were wobbling now and she was becoming light-headed. “You mean to be your maîtresse?”

      He chuckled at her use of the old-fashioned word. “A mistress? Now wouldn’t that be an amusing form of revenge.”

      She scowled and clutched his arm. “You can’t mean that. You don’t even know who I am anymore.”

      Kate clearly understood that Chase was her biggest weakness. She wanted him to want her. But she would never give up independence—not even for him. If he asked for her body, fine. She would be all for it.

      He would never take her soul.

      “No?” Chase said with a chuckle. “Well, let’s start with dinner, then. Tomorrow night. And wear something sexy. I think I’ll be needing a lot of persuasion.”

      Three

      Chase knelt beside Kate under the low-hanging branches of a willow tree that was all decked out in its June finest. Silvery light from the full moon shone through the leaves in platinum streaks and illuminated Kate’s sweet, smiling face. Taking his time, he unbuttoned her blouse and ran a finger over the rise of her creamy breasts, peeking out from under the soft, white bra.

      Kate, his wonderful darling. Tonight wouldn’t be the first time that they’d made love, but this time he would go slow. He would manage to ignore the hard, burning heat in his groin long enough to make it good for her, too. Tonight he would show her…tell her with both his touch and his words how much a part of him she had become.

      “I love you, Kate,” he whispered as he bent to place a kiss against her tender neck. “You are my everything.”

      “Chase,” she groaned. “That feels so good. But I have something important to tell you.”

      “Tell me, chère,” he mumbled against her lips. “Tell me how you feel.”

      She opened her mouth to speak, and he held his breath, expecting to hear words of love for the very first time in his whole nineteen years of life.

      “Whoohoo. Just looky what we’ve got here.”

      The sudden deep catcall from behind his back shot a spear of fear straight to his gut. But before he could cover Kate and turn around, rough hands grabbed them both and pulled them out from under their shelter.

      Chase shot up out of bed with a start. His hands were fisted, the sweat poured off his forehead and the sheets lay on the floor in a tangled knot.

      Dammit. He hadn’t had that dream in years.

      Looking around the bedroom of his suite at the B&B, he tried to get his bearings—tried to remember how to breathe. He grabbed his slacks off the back of a chair, pulled them on and opened the French doors out to his private balcony.

      In three long strides he was outside, holding on to the railing with a deadly grip. He stared unseeing out at the pearly gray predawn that was casting quiet shadows over the southern Louisiana swamp.

      He took a deep breath and blew it out. It hadn’t occurred to him that coming back here and facing his past would bring back that dream. He should’ve known.

      In fact, he should welcome the old dream, though it always left his body aching for Kate and his soul starved for words that never came. The familiar dream scene was not the worst thing that had happened that fateful June night so long ago. The pain of betrayal was much harder to live with. But the dream of Kate lying under him and looking up with what should’ve been love in her eyes was the memory that hurt the most.

      That look had been all a lie. And he needed to keep the pain fresh in his mind when he dealt with Kate now.

      A lone Snowy Egret caught his attention as it swooped low in the skies between the B&B and the swamp. It was a beautiful and graceful sight with its white plumes and its slow, gliding movements. But all the bird’s solo flight succeeded in doing was driving home the point that Chase had lived with for most of his life.

      He was a loner and had been happily content with his own company for as long as he could remember. A solitary man who needed no one and should expect nothing that he didn’t make for himself.

      Kate stopped walking and looked up, watching the Snowy Egret as it glided past and headed out toward the Gulf. It was exactly this kind of beautiful sight she would miss the most if she had to leave town and her home to find work in the city.

      She lowered her head and trudged on down the ancient path, leading between Live Oak Hall and the mill. How many more times would she be allowed to make this trip in the quiet early hours? How many more times would she make the return trip, watching as the sunset streaked СКАЧАТЬ