Read Online Donovan's Bed: The Calhoun Sisters, Book 1 by Debra Mullins - Free Book Online Page B

hands to his shoulders to push him away, but the warmth of his touch seduced her. The unbridled desire that drove him matched her own confusing emotions. Even as the voice of reason screamed not to give in to the danger, her lips parted beneath his, and she melted into his embrace.
    It all seemed so simple, so basic. She closed her eyes in pleasure as the familiar fires licked at her, urging her closer to him. Her body had reacted the moment she saw him slip through the back door of the Chronicle . The way he moved mesmerized her. Swift. Stealthy. Soundless. Like a mountain cat stalking prey. There was a wild look in his eyes that set her heart to pounding, and her senses hummed, her body awakening with those traitorous longings that tortured her at night.
    And right now she didn’t care about anything except that he keep touching her.
    His big hands smoothed down her back, pressing her hard against him as he swept his tongue into the softness of her mouth. She opened to him, offering him everything, her own long-rejected passion exploding from her like the steam from a locomotive.  
    Anything could happen, and she wanted it to. Ignoring the tiny voice of morality that whispered through her mind, she grabbed fistfuls of his hair with both hands and kissed him with every ounce of passionate hunger that enslaved her.
    A shriek rent the air. “Fetch me my husband now! I’m fixin’ to be Mrs. Donovan afore sundown!”
    Sarah broke the kiss and stared at him. “What was that?”
    “Damn.” He eyed her mouth with such carnal intent that she shuddered. “Bessie Beaumont. She wants to marry me.”
    “What?”
    “No time to explain.” He grabbed her hand and yanked her toward her desk. “I need you to hide me until the Beaumonts leave.”
    She watched with amazement as he took off his hat, dropped to all fours and crawled beneath her desk. “Are you out of your mind?”
    He stuck his head out and glared at her. “You listen here, sassy girl. The Beaumont boys are bound and determined to drag me to my own shotgun wedding unless you help me. And seeing as how it was you who got me into this fix, I reckon you can get me out of it. Now sit down.”
    “You can’t blame me for this! The Beaumonts can’t even read.”
    “Sit, Sarah.”
    She gaped. “I can’t sit at my desk with you under there! It would be so…so…”
    “Exciting? Arousing?” He grinned at her, every inch the rogue with his dark hair tumbling over his forehead and the single dimple creasing his cheek. “What’s the matter, sugar? Don’t you trust me?”
    “I…I…”
    The front door to the newspaper office swung open, and the Beaumont brothers squeezed through. Donovan ducked back under the desk.
    “Afternoon, Miss Sarah,” Ben, the eldest, said. “We’re looking for Mr. Donovan on account of he’s gonna marry our sister this afternoon. Have you seen him?”
    Sarah glanced from the shotguns the Beaumonts held to their slow-witted but determined expressions. With a graceful, casual movement, she slid into her chair and folded her hands atop her desk.
    “I’m sorry, boys,” she said with a charming smile. “I haven’t seen him all day.”
    The Beaumont brothers shuffled and shifted and scratched their heads, clearly at a loss.
    “Are you sure you ain’t seen him, Miss Sarah?” Beau, the biggest of the lot, pushed back his dusty, battered hat. “We saw him run this way.”
    “Mr. Donovan and I don’t exactly get along,” Sarah said.
    “That’s not what I heard.” Bessie pushed past her brothers and stood with her hands on her pudgy hips, her scraggly red-brown hair falling in her eyes. Her over-endowed bosom heaved with outrage. Though her head barely reached her brother’s chest, Bessie glared at Sarah with all the fierceness of a grand Amazon princess.
    Sarah raised her eyebrows. “I don’t know what you heard, Bessie—”
    “I heard that you got your eye on my man, Miss Prim and Proper. And I’m here to tell ya that I