Read Online Hale's Point by Patricia Ryan - Free Book Online Page B

mountain of
pillows. What was that line from Thoreau that Tucker had quoted… something
about living a life of quiet desperation?
    “What am I doing?” she whispered.
    She heard a creak and opened her eyes. Everything was very
quiet. Then came another creak and a thump she recognized as the sound of his
cane on carpeting. He was upstairs. Her door was closed. She waited, and then
came two light knocks.
    She cleared her throat. “Yes?”
    A little pause. “Do you mind if I come in?”
    She looked down at herself. It was a warm night, and although
she had pulled down the covers, she had not gotten under them. She wore her
favorite summer nightgown, sleeveless white handkerchief-cotton with a row of
tiny heart-shaped buttons down the front. It was thin, but you couldn’t see
through it—not quite. Not in the dim light from the little bedside reading
lamp, anyway. The left side had slipped off her shoulder, and she righted it,
then smoothed the skirt so it covered her legs down to the ankles.
    “No, come in.”
    The door opened halfway and Tucker paused in the darkened
hall. She could see him—he still had on the shorts and T-shirt he had worn that
day—but she couldn’t make out his expression.
    “What are you reading?” he asked, taking a few steps into the
room.
    She held up the book, and he frowned, coming closer for a
better look. He leaned his cane against the night table, took the book from
her, and turned it over, skimming the blurb on the back cover. “‘Prioritization
of strategies for minimizing job-related anxiety in order to maximize
managerial effectiveness’? This is
your bedtime reading?”
    “Did you come up here to criticize my reading material?”
    He sat down on the edge of the bed and laid the book on the
table. Without looking at her, he shook his head. Absently he ran a hand over
his now-smooth chin.
    He turned to her. “I came up here to see if you’d let me
spend the night with you.” She stared at him, eyes wide in disbelief—not at
what he wanted, which she had suspected, but at his breathtaking candor. He
said, “Pretty smooth seduction, huh?” That shy smile again, the lazy brown eyes
staring back.
    “That’s probably not a good idea,” she said.
    He reached toward her with both hands, gently took her face
between them, and looked her straight in the eye. “No, I think it’s a great
idea.”
    She laughed, partly from nervousness and partly because his
sincerity disarmed her—but only momentarily. There were many reasons not to
sleep with Tucker Hale, and she would spell them out, since he seemed to like
the straightforward approach.
    She forced a note of cool reason into her voice and said, “We
haven’t exactly been getting along real well.”
    He said, “Then we should try to get along better.”
    He shifted his hands, his long fingers twining through her
hair to wrap around the back of her head. Her scalp tingled at his touch,
little rivulets of pleasure coursing through her. He pulled her slightly
forward as he moved closer. She thought, I
shouldn’t let him kiss me, but then she felt his warm lips on hers, and her
will weakened. It’s just a kiss, she
thought, closing her eyes. Just one kiss.
Then I’ll make him leave.
    He was surprisingly gentle, his lips barely grazing her own,
which felt extraordinarily sensitive. Then he leaned into the kiss just a bit,
his mouth moving slowly over hers. There was no irritation from stubble this
time; his skin was smooth against hers.
    He lingered over the kiss, softly coaxing her into returning
it, which she did, at first tentatively, then with real warmth. As her
resistance evaporated, she felt both apprehensive and excited. This sense of
being overwhelmed by a man was new to her, and she found that a certain part of
her, a part she had not known of before, welcomed it.
    He was so large, so sure of himself. Everything about him was
masculine, even the scent of his warm skin mingled with hints of tobacco and
shaving