Read Online Friends and Lovers by Diana Palmer - Free Book Online Page B

you in the elevator—if you’d ever thought about making love with me?”
    She dropped the coffee cup. The hot liquid splattered all over the linen tablecloth, drenching the remains of her dessert, her napkin, and spilling into her plate. She gasped and jerked back just in time to save her dress.
    “Well, that answers that question,” John said with a wicked chuckle. “Josito!” he called.
    The little white-coated man came running, assuring Madeline that he could save the tablecloth from being stained, and shooed them off into the living room while he cleaned up.
    John was still laughing as he sprawled in his big easy chair and shed his jacket and tie. “My God, what a reaction,” he murmured as he opened the top few buttons of his ruffled shirt.
    “My hand slipped,” she said stubbornly. She kicked off her shoes and curled up on the sofa, glaring across at him.
    “Sure.” He lit a cigarette and drew up a hassock for his elegantly booted feet.
    Madeline stared at the hands folded in her lap. “All right, I wasn’t expecting to be propositioned by you.”
    Both heavy eyebrows went up. “I wasn’t aware that I’d propositioned you,” he said with that silky note in his voice that spelled trouble.
    “What would you call it?” she asked, starting slightly as a clash of thunder reverberated through the room.
    “A straight-out, honest question,” he replied. He took a deep draw from the cigarette. “I want to know if you’ve ever thought of me as a lover.”
    “Why?” she countered.
    He leaned over and crushed out the barely touched cigarette with a vicious motion. “Because we can’t go back,” he said shortly. “I told you that earlier, and I meant it. Now that I’ve had a taste of you, I’m going to want more.” He met her eyes levelly. “That’s human nature, honey, and you aren’t any more immune to me than I am to you.”
    “Don’t rush me….”
    “Rush you, for God’s sake!” he growled, getting to his feet to tower over her—big and masculine and sensuous with his shirt half unbuttoned over that bronzed, massive chest. “You’ve had two years!”
    “I won’t be added to the Ferrari and the ranch and the oil corporation!” she flung at him.
    He sighed angrily. “What makes you think you would be?”
    “You’re so overwhelming, John,” she ground out, avoiding his penetrating gaze. “You…possess things.”
    “I’d like to possess you, all right,” he said in a voice she’d never heard before. “All of you, right down to your dainty little feet.”
    “Hush!” she whispered, glancing toward the kitchen. “Josito will hear you!”
    “Josito won’t hear anything over this thunder,” he informed her. “But if it bothers you…” He stalked off toward the kitchen. There were muffled voices, a pause, and then John came striding back out with Josito right behind him.
    “Good night,
señorita
,” the little man told Madeline with a mischievous grin, his jacket over his arm. “I will see you later, Señor Durango,” he added before he went out the door, closing it firmly behind him.
    “Oh, now look what you’ve done,” Madeline wailed, sitting up straighter. “He’ll think you’re planning to seduce me!”
    “I am,” he said matter-of-factly.
    “That’s what you think!” she returned, searching the floor for her shoes. “I’m going home!”
    He caught her by the shoulders as she stood up, and held her just in front of him to study her with quiet, searching eyes.
    “I know,” he said with a sigh. “I’m going too fast.”
    She looked up at him, feeling dwarfed without her high heels. His hands on her bare shoulders were warm and strangely comforting.
    She laughed suddenly, nervously, and dropped her eyes to the wide expanse of chest visible where his elegant shirt was unbuttoned. Its stark whiteness only emphasized his dark tan.
    “I feel like a teenage girl on her first real date,” she admitted self-consciously. “And I suppose I’m acting like