Read Online A Tempestuous Temptation by Cathy Williams - Free Book Online

couldn’t imagine her leaving the protective circle of light and striking out for an amble in the town. The plain truth was that she had had a little too much to drink. She had been distinctly green round the gills when she had stood up after eating a couple of sandwiches, although that was something she would never have admitted to.
    Frankly, Luiz had no time for women who drank, but he could hardly blame her. Neither of them had been aware of how much wine had been consumed. She would probably wake up with a headache in the morning, which would be a nuisance, as he wanted to leave at the crack of dawn, weather permitting. But that was life.
    He narrowed his eyes and sat forward as she became bored with her circular tramping and began heading towards the little gate that led out towards the street and the town.
    Without waiting for the coffee, he headed for the front door, only pausing on the way to tell Mrs Bixby that he’d let himself back in.
    She’d vanished from sight and Luiz cursed fluentlyunder his breath. Without a coat it was freezing and he was half-running when he saw her staggering up the street with purpose before pausing to lean against a lamp post, head buried in the crook of her elbow.
    ‘Bloody woman,’ he muttered under his breath. He picked up speed as much as he could and reached her side just in time to scoop her up as she was about to slide to the ground.
    Aggie shrieked.
    ‘Do you intend to wake the entire town?’ Luiz began walking as quickly as he could back to the bed and breakfast. Which, in snow that was fast settling, wasn’t very quickly at all.
    ‘Put me down!’ She pummelled ineffectively at his chest but soon gave up because the activity made her feel even more queasy.
    ‘Now, that has to be the most stupid thing ever to have left your lips.’
    ‘I said put me
down
!’
    ‘If I put you down, you wouldn’t be able to get back up. You don’t honestly think I missed the fact that you were hanging onto that lamp post for dear life, do you?’
    ‘I don’t need rescuing by you!’
    ‘And I don’t need to be out here in freezing weather playing the knight in shining armour! Now shut up!’
    Aggie was so shocked by that insufferably arrogant command that she shut up.
    She wouldn’t have admitted it in a million years but it felt good to be carried like this, because her legs had been feeling very wobbly. In fact, she really had been on the point of wanting to sink to the ground just to take the weight off them before he had swept her off her feet.
    She felt him nudge the front door open with his foot, which meant that it had been left ajar. It was humiliatingto think of Mrs Bixby seeing her like this and she buried herself against Luiz, willing herself to disappear.
    ‘Don’t worry,’ Luiz murmured drily in her ear. ‘Our friendly landlady is nowhere to be seen. I told her to go to bed, that I’d make sure I brought you in in one piece.’
    Aggie risked a glance at the empty hall and instructed him to put her down.
    ‘That dumb suggestion again. You’re drunk and you need to get to bed, which is what I told you before you decided to prove how stubborn you could be by ignoring my very sound advice.’
    ‘I am not
drunk
. I am
never
drunk.’ She was alarmed by a sudden need to hiccup, which she thankfully stifled. ‘Furthermore, I am
more than
capable of making my own way upstairs.’
    ‘Okay.’ He released her fast enough for her to feel the ground rushing up to meet her and she clutched his jumper with both hands and took a few deep breaths. ‘Still want to convince me that you’re
more than capable
of making your own way upstairs?’
    ‘I hate you!’ Aggie muttered as he swept her back up into his arms.
    ‘You have a tendency to be repetitive,’ Luiz murmured, and he didn’t have to see her face to know that she was glaring at him. ‘And I’m surprised and a little offended that you hate me for rescuing you from almost certainly falling flat on your face in