Read Online Eden Burning by Elizabeth Lowell - Free Book Online Page B

and rent money. She’s lived with us for years.” He whacked Chase on the shoulder. “Talk you more later, brudder. Sure-sure.”
    With that, Bobby disappeared through the curtains into the noise and friendly professional wrangling.
    Nicole waited for Chase to release her.
    He didn’t even look her way.
    She tried one tug on her captive wrist. Nothing budged. She made a throat-clearing sound.
    He turned and looked at her from head to toe. Glowing eyes. Lush breasts. Breathtaking skin. Hips that should have been against the law.
    In a distant kind of way, Chase didn’t blame her for wanting the richest man she could get. Women had been trading beauty for wealth for a long, long time. Why should she be different?
    Because Bobby’s family was rich both in land and in money, Chase didn’t doubt that she and the big Hawaiian were lovers now or had been in the past. But whether old or new, the affair hadn’t led to an offer of marriage yet. If it had, Nicole wouldn’t be hunting Dane. Maybe Bobby hadn’t been quite wealthy enough. Or maybe his wife had dug in and fought for her man until Pele let go and went on the hunt for easier prey.
    For an instant Chase wished that his sister-in-law was a fighter, that he could pursue Nicole just for the pure, hot pleasure of the sex. But Jan wasn’t a fighter. She was simply too gentle and too good for gutter brawling. If Dane asked for a divorce, she would give it to him even if it killed her.
    Not that Jan’s temperament made any real difference. No woman could measure up to Pele in a fight, in a bed, or anywhere else.
    Every way Chase looked at it, Jan lost.
    Unless he could get Nicole out of Dane’s hair by getting her into bed. Soon. Very soon. Before she had a chance to do any more damage.
    And after that kiss, soon shouldn’t be a problem.

 
    Nicole’s wrist tugged against Chase’s hot, hard fingers. Nothing gave way.
    “You have something of mine,” she pointed out in a voice that was caught between exasperation and humor.
    “You mean this?” Forcing himself to smile, Chase held up her wrist as if he had just discovered it attached to his fingers.
    “Must be. See?” She put her left wrist alongside her right. “Perfect match with my other one.”
    “Can’t argue that.” He ran his fingertip from wrist to elbow, first along one of her arms and then the other. The visible shiver of her response shortened his breath and quickened his heartbeat. “It’s hard to find that kind of perfection,” he said, looking into her eyes.
    For a moment he forgot that he was going for a quick, cold seduction. In the slanting light from the stage wings, Nicole’s eyes were a startling, luminous gold. The color was as vivid and as unexpected as the pure fire of her body arched against his had been.
    “And it’s even harder to let go,” he added thickly. “But I’m feeling generous tonight. I’ll give your wrist back if you’ll use it to have a drink with me.”
    Normally Nicole would have turned aside the invitation with a smile and a humorous excuse, but there was nothing normal about tonight. There hadn’t been since the moment she had heard Chase’s fingers seducing the drums, filling the night with sensual throbs that still quivered deep within her.
    He was a stranger, yet during the dance she felt like she had always known him, always searched for him, always yearned toward the instant in time when he would come to her out of darkness and wrap his power and his hunger around her, teaching her something shattering about herself.
    “I—” Her voice broke in a husky intake of breath.
    She made herself look away from the clear, crystal depths of his eyes. She couldn’t think when he looked at her like that. She could only feel, and what she felt was a sense of fire and rightness that would have frightened her if her mind had been working at all.
    “All right,” she said, her voice almost as thick as his.
    His smile made her breath stop. Distantly she