Read Online I Dream of Danger by Lisa Marie Rice - Free Book Online Page A

on shaky legs, completely, utterly happy.

Chapter 3
    N ick paid for the delivery. Jesus . His heart had clenched when Elle told Jenny to put it on her credit card. If she had any money on her card, he’d eat his shorts. Elle had no money at all.
    The judge’s illness had pared them down to the bone. The happy, luxurious home he’d known was no more. Now it was this cold, empty shell. Most of the furniture and artwork gone. The once-glorious gardens abandoned and full of weeds.
    And Elle— Christ. Thin, drawn, dressed in rags.
    Still amazingly beautiful.
    He remembered her as a beautiful girl who was heading into glorious womanhood. When he left, he knew that was her trajectory. She didn’t worry him at all. Pampered daughter of a wealthy, well-respected man, smart as hell, good in school, gorgeous. He was leaving, but she was moving straight into the best possible life.
    Nothing had prepared him for the reality—poor, abandoned. But still stunning. If anything, she was more appealing now. The Elle he knew was happy in the way of people whose lives had shown them nothing but the best of the world. Her looks were spectacular, but on top of that had been all the trappings of coming from a wealthy family—healthy diet, lots of tennis, expensive orthodontics, not a care in the world. That Elle had been a magnet.
    But this Elle—this tragic waif—she’d grabbed his heart.
    His nuts, too, by the look of it.
    Because who could resist this girl—no, this woman—whose gaze was deep with the knowledge of pain and suffering. The fall of the family was all around them, but Elle hadn’t complained once about what had happened. It was clear that she’d put her life on hold to look after the judge, but not once had she put it that way. An A-student all the way, she wasn’t even in college. From the looks of their finances, college was probably out of the question.
    She hadn’t had anything resembling a life, let alone the life she should have had.
    She’d been a virgin. That had surprised him more than anything, though if he’d stopped to think about it, there wasn’t any space in her life for play.
    He should have stopped when he found out he was her first. Christ, she deserved better than a mongrel dog on his way out the door. What was the matter with him? He’d long ago learned to control his dick, why hadn’t he just now?
    Well, there was the fact that she’d looked like some kind of movie star on the bed, long, pale blond hair around her head like a halo but not an angel. Not with that look in her gorgeous light blue eyes, not with her arms up to hold him, not with her legs apart in invitation, puffy pink folds of her sex peeping through the ash brown hair of her mound.
    That Elle was pure temptation, impossible to resist. He was no hero. Who was he to turn something like that down?
    This Elle was completely different from the girl who visited his dreams. Time and again, he’d had the sense of her being there, with him. Usually at night. More times than he cared to think about while he was fucking.
    He’d be with a woman, lost in the sex, and there she was. In his head.
    He’d had to learn how to get her out of there, like picking a burr out of your coat. “Nick?” He whirled, saw her in the doorway, and his heart nearly stopped.
    Jesus, this double vision he had. The lovely, laughing girl of his memory and this—the stunning woman who’d known tragedy. She’d put on blue sweats—clearly old but clean and ironed. Probably dark blue once, now faded to a streaky light blue that matched her eyes.
    Nick manfully kept his gaze locked on her face, but he was pretty sure she wasn’t wearing a bra. The feel of her under his hands, the taste of her in his mouth—the memory swamped him.
    She walked in barefoot—and fuck him if her feet weren’t gorgeous too. Slim, high-arched, with very pretty toes. He nearly sighed because he was fully erect again. He had to feed her before he did anything else. He had to keep