Read Online Heart of the Hunter by Bj James - Free Book Online Page A

surf, he was virile and elegantly attractive. An accomplished, knowledgeable man of cold, utter calm. Once past the first delighted rush of recognition and friendship, the marvelous eyes that should have been the reflection of that man, had been shuttered, guarded, with little expression, offering no betrayal of his mood or thoughts.
    She’d sensed, rather than seen, danger shimmering beneath the icy calm. Danger she hadn’t understood. As he stood before her, holding her hand in his, bowing gallantly, she understood too well.
    He was not cold here in the sun. He was not elegant, not merely attractive. As the light played over him, turning his sun-streaked hair to a tousled halo, and his skin to burnished gold, he was too vivid, too alive to be merely anything.
    Running shorts, wet from the sweat of exertion and clinging, left little doubt he was undeniably, powerfully masculine. A rogue’s grin tugging at his mouth, and a glint in his eyes, he was pure animal magnetism. And in his gray gaze keeping hers, locked deeply within dark-rimmed irises, she discovered the primal man.
    A man of fire and ice. A man of raw passions and ruthless anger, of fear and love and secret hurt. The man she’d loved all her life. Untamed, intriguing and infinitely hazardous to her good sense. There lay the danger.
    â€œShall we walk, Nicky? Shall we pretend this is Eden, and ours are the only footsteps that have ever crossed the sand?”
    As he spoke he bent nearer, his breath brushing her cheek. The heated scent of him rose to her, filling her lungs with the fragrance of soap and sweat and man.
    Danger. Her mind cried it, her heart didn’t listen.
    Nicole knew she should back away. Perhaps run away. She wasn’t ready for the tenderness, nor the warmth. There was too much she had to resolve, to put into perspective. Too much she had to understand about herself, and what she might still feel for Jeb.
    She should have backed away. Should have run. Instead she heard herself saying, “There’s nothing I’d like better than to walk with you and pretend there’s no one here but us.”
    * * *
    An hour later, after they’d chased scrabbling crabs to their high-water lairs, stalked drowsing gulls and raced with the sandpipers like mischievous children, Nicole’s misgivings were forgotten.
    Until Jeb stopped scuffing sand dollars from their burrows at the water’s edge, to watch her.
    Feeling his stare, Nicole looked up from the array of shells she’d collected in her shirt. Thinking he was amused by the fine layer of sand covering her nose, with a quirk of her lips and a huffing breath she blew it away.
    And still he stared and smiled.
    Just for a while, she tried to stare him down, but he was impervious. His eyes were on her, but his mind seemed to see into her. She tried to ignore him, going about the business of lining sand dollars to dry in the sand. And still his riveting stare followed her. Nettled by the scorching intensity, she bolted to her feet, spilling shirt and spiny disks helter-skelter on the sand.
    â€œWhat?” she demanded, feet planted, hands on narrow hips. “What on earth fascinates you so much?”
    â€œYou do,” he said almost absently. “Only you, my love.”
    â€œOf course I do. I’m an old friend, remember?” She made the saucy remark with a brash bravado, ignoring the sudden trip-hammer pace of her heart. Then in spite of every effort to the contrary, she asked, “Why, Jeb?”
    â€œI’m damned if I know.” He spoke scarcely above the sound of the surf. “I suppose it could be that it’s almost too easy to believe we’re the only people who’ve ever walked this shore. One man, one woman in a sandy Eden.”
    Nicole wanted to say something. Another bantering reply, a facetious observation, but her tongue wouldn’t cooperate.
    He didn’t seem to notice. “It could be that wee bit of a