Read Online A Loving Man by Cait London - Free Book Online Page B

a rough, hungry kiss, and not the kind that she could stop—if she’d wanted to, if she weren’t grabbing him with her arms and legs and wrestling him beneath her to have more of that fiery, wide-open hunger. She raised up once to look at him, to stop the whirling furnace, and Stefan stared back at her, his dark expression just as wild and fierce as she felt. Then he looked down at her breasts, to the buttons that had opened to reveal her lacy bra. His body hardened beneath hers, and in the next second that dark, heated gaze was slowly easing away from her face, from her lips, and rising to Yvette and Estelle who were standing near them. Yvette was trying to hide a grin and Estelle was staring down at them, her expression shocked.Her mouth moved once and no sound came, and then, “Daddy! Just what are you doing?”
    “Playing. Rose likes to play. I think she wants me,” he said unevenly, though his expression would have been sheepish, if he weren’t Stefan Donatien, power businessman. “Go away.”
    “Stay,” Rose ordered and couldn’t seem to push herself upright, away from Stefan’s big, aroused body…or the seductive stroking of his hands on her back. She blinked when she saw her fingers pressed deep into his strong shoulders.
    “That’s the first time Daddy has ever—” Estelle murmured in a disbelieving tone.
    “I know, dear,” Yvette said cheerfully. She tugged on Estelle’s arm and began walking toward the old cabin. “Let’s go take my new plants home. It will be a nice little walk. Coming, Rose? Stefan?”
    “Not me,” Rose stated firmly as she eased herself to her feet. She was headed for safety—anywhere away from Stefan. “I’m going home.”
    Standing beside her now, Stefan lightly tugged her wet hair and Rose swatted at him. Estelle and Yvette were having an animated conversation as they walked, which became more energetic each time Estelle looked back at her father. With as much dignity as Rose could manage, she marched off across the field toward town, her shoes filled and squishing with mud.
    She couldn’t resist turning, just that once, to see Stefan standing in the lush green field, his arms crossed over his chest. His boyish, devastating grin shot straight across the dying sunlight and hit her with the force of a thunderbolt. She turned to stare at him and his expression changed into a darker, sensual one that caused every molecule in her body to vibrate and heat.
    She couldn’t—Rose swallowed the tight emotion in her throat. She’d been through enough pain and she couldn’t expose herself again. She forced herself to turn and walk away, and then she began to run. She ran until she thought her heart would burst—just like it did when her mother left her.
    At her house, a cold shower did not erase Stefan’s arousing touch, the intimate way he looked at her. Rose shook her head beneath the spray. “I can’t help it if I’m a physical woman. I feel like all my senses have been sleeping, just waiting to leap on Stefan. I didn’t feel like this with Larry or Henry or Mike, no matter how much I tried. This is just not fair. I’ve just now got my life under control. I was safe. I will not get involved with Stefan. He’ll get tired of dull rural life in Waterville and he’ll move on. And he’s just too—just too unsafe,” she finished saying.
    She blew the water from her bottom lip, the lip that Stefan had gently suckled. Still sensitive and tasting him, Rose Granger decided that in the ball game of life, she wasn’t meant to have fair and just umpire calls. Dressed in a long emerald caftan, with her damp hair propped high on her head, she went out on the porch to curl up in the white wicker chair, to sip lemonade and to contemplate while she painted her toenails. She always fought life better with scarlet toe nails and with Stefan, she was certain there would be a battle.
     
    In the evening hours, Henry and Shirley strolled by. They stopped at Rose’s front white