Read Online Gabriel's Angel by Nora Roberts - Free Book Online Page B

needs, needs held down by chains, that made the embrace more exciting, more involving, than any other. His hands were in her hair, searching, exploring, while his lips moved endlessly over hers. She felt the world tip and knew instinctively that he would be there to right it again.
    He had to stop. He couldn’t stop. One taste, just one taste, and he craved more. It seemed he’d been empty, without knowing it, and now—incredibly, swiftly, terrifyingly—he was filled.
    Her hands, hesitant, somehow innocent, slipped over his arms to his shoulders. When she parted her lips, there was that same curious shyness in the invitation. He could smell the spring, though it was still buried beneath the snow, could smell it in her hair, on her skin. Even the wood smoke that always tinted the air in the cabin couldn’t overwhelm it. Logs shifted in the grate, and the wind that came up with evening began to moan against the window. And Laura, her mouth warm and giving under his, sighed.
    He wanted to play out the fantasy, to draw her up into his arms and take her to bed. To lie with her, to slip his shirt from her and feel her skin against his own. To have her touch him, hold on to him. Trust him.
    The war inside him raged on. She wasn’t merely a woman, she was a woman who was carrying a child. And growing inside her was not merely a child, but the child of another man, one she had loved.
    She wasn’t his to love. He wasn’t hers to trust. Still, she pulled at him, her secrets, her eyes, eyes that said much, much more than her words, and her beauty, which she didn’t seem to understand went far beyond the shape and texture of her face.
    So he had to stop, until he resolved within himself exactly what he wanted—and until she trusted him enough to tell him the whole truth.
    He would have drawn her away from him, but she pressed her face into his shoulder. “Please don’t say anything, just for a minute.”
    There were tears in her voice, and they left him more shaken than the kiss had. The tug-of-war increased, and finally he lifted a hand to stroke her hair. The baby turned, moving inside her, against him, and he wondered what in God’s name he was going to do.
    â€œI’m sorry.” Her voice was under control again, but she didn’t let go. How could she have known how badly she needed to be held, when there had been so few times in her life when anyone had bothered? “I don’t mean to cling.”
    â€œYou’re not.”
    â€œWell.” Drawing herself up straight, she stepped back. There were no tears, but her eyes glimmered with the effort it took to hold them in. “You were going to say that you didn’t mean for that to happen, but it’s all right.”
    â€œI didn’t mean for that to happen,” he said evenly. “But that’s not an apology.”
    â€œOh.” A little nonplussed, she braced a hand on the back of the chair. “I suppose what I meant is that I don’t want you to feel— I don’t want you to think that I— Hell.” With that, she gave in and sat. “I’m trying to say that I’m not upset that you kissed me and that I understand.”
    â€œGood.” He felt better, much better than he’d thought he would. Casually he dragged over another chair and straddled it. “What do you understand, Laura?”
    She’d thought he would let it go at that, take the easy way out. She struggled to say what she felt without saying too much. “That you felt a little sorry for me, and involved a bit, because of the situation, and the painting, too.” Why couldn’t she relax again? And why was he looking at her that way? “I don’t want you to think that I misunderstood. I would hardly expect you to be . . .” The ground was getting shakier by the minute. She was ready to shut up entirely, but he quirked a brow and gestured with his hands, inviting