Read Online Handful of Dreams by Heather Graham - Free Book Online Page B

chair and picked up his plate, methodically scraping chicken bones into the trash, then filling the sink with dish detergent. “Do you play Scrabble?” he asked over his shoulder.
    “I do. But I’m not sure I care to play with you.”
    “Don’t you think it would be better than baiting one another for the next four hours?”
    “I think it would be better if you let me go to bed.”
    He hesitated. “You’re not going anywhere alone.”
    “I’ll get the Scrabble board.”
    She stood, delved into a side drawer for another candle, lit it from the first, and returned to the parlor.
    The board didn’t fit on the coffee table. She set it up before the fire and brought two of the throw pillows down from the couch for seats. She glanced at the setup a little uneasily. It looked very intimate and cozy. Maybe she should have taken it back to the kitchen.
    “Want some hot chocolate out there?” he called suddenly.
    “Ah—I guess.”
    Susan grimaced, looking out at the storm. She was in an intolerable position, and it seemed as if the weather were laughing at her on top of everything else. The rain hadn’t abated at all. With a sigh she sank down to her pillow and began turning all the letters over in the box.
    Bringing the hot chocolate out on a small silver tray, David paused involuntarily in the doorway. His fingers tightened around the tray; his muscles seemed to quiver, then contract.
    Yes, he could see so clearly how she could seduce and lay claim to a man. Her head was slightly lowered as she sat there, and the fire touched her hair, making glittering gems of the red highlights. It had dried now; it streamed over her shoulders like a satin cloak, contrasting beautifully with the white terry robe. She looked so soft, so feminine, her long elegant fingers with their red nails moving over the letters in the box. Very feminine … the V of that robe not at all too low but falling just a shadowed half inch from her flesh as she moved. Maybe the shadows were so alluring to him because he knew what lay beneath. And maybe, if he’d never seen her before, he would be every bit as beguiled.
    More so. If he didn’t know her, he would be compelled to go to her, to touch her, to talk to her and whisper gentle words. He would want her, want to seduce her, to feel the brush of her hair against his shoulders, the slim length of her thighs against his own.
    He closed his eyes and a new image rose before him: this woman, with her deep russet hair, standing slowly, shedding the robe. Stretching like a cat before the sultry flames, her breasts rising high and taut, the smooth line of her stomach flattening even further, enhancing the narrow curve of her waist, the flare of her hips…. She would smile, that slow, taunting smile, and a man would step forward. His hand would slide along her bare side to her hip and rest there, pulling her against him….
    A man. He gritted his teeth and opened his eyes, fighting dizziness. The man had been his father, and her sensuous smiles and liquid beauty and talent had been for sale.
    He gave himself a little shake. What the hell was the matter with him? He wasn’t exactly starved. He was no kid dragged out of a jungle after months of abstinence. Sexual play was easy to come by these days. Maybe too easy. He didn’t remember what it was like to want a woman and not find her equally enthused. Or to be wanted himself and smile and play the game. Only the kid he had once been felt like he did now; so entranced, so shaky, so hot and on fire, as if having her were the most important thing on earth.
    Ass! He thought self-accusingly. Just like he had been that one fool time when he had learned how badly it could hurt and destroy to fall in love.
    She had been his father’s mistress. She hadn’t tried once to defend her mercenary position. She had bled Peter, and she was still here, gloating over her earnings.
    Why the hell didn’t he just let her go lock herself away? She was all right, he was