Read Online One Reckless Summer by Toni Blake - Free Book Online Page B

Her eyes said she’d seen where he’d been looking, and that she felt his heat.
    It was almost enough to make him forget why he was here and close the distance between them and do what he’d done last night. He’d never been so physically drawn to a woman on sight, and at the moment all he could think of—that fast—was taking her back into his arms, pressing into those sweet, soft curves, and doing what came naturally.
    Yet that’s when Jenny Tolliver broke the spell, looking nervously away to say, “Would you like some iced tea?”
    Damn—he was barging into her house late at night, and she was offering him tea? He almost said no, but it had been a hot, muggy trip across the lake in the metal rowboat he’d found still stashed in a half-fallen-down shed behind the old house. “Uh, sure,” he said.
    “May as well have a seat,” she suggested, motioning to the table, her tone reminding him that despite the tea, she hadn’t invited him here. And that got him back in his right mind.
    Pulling out a chair, he settled at the small wooden table, taking in the quaint wicker basket of napkins to one side, along with the ceramic salt and pepper shakers designed in the shape of mallard ducks. “Listen,” he said, still not quite sure how to convince her, but he knew he had to. “I know I was a hard-ass last night.”
    “Yeah, you could say that,” she replied, not looking at him as she reached in the refrigerator to pull out a glass pitcher with lemon slices painted on the side. It gave him a chance to notice her round ass, softly hugged by a pair of sweatpants. And just like with her breasts, the sight made him remember having that ass in his hands, molding it, using it to pull her into his lap. God, they’d been hot together.
    “Thing is,” he made himself go on, “I didn’t have a choice. And when I say you can’t tell anybody about me…” He stopped, out of words, and the truth was, he just didn’t have any good way to convince her, damn it. And though his early life had taught him to convince people by threats, he didn’t think that had worked last night, so it probably wasn’t the best way tonight, either.
    Desperate but not letting it show, he tried a different appeal—honesty. Plain, blatant honesty. “It’s important, pussycat, that no one finds out I’m here. Really important. I can’t tell you why, and I know you don’t have any reason to help me, but it’s almost…a matter of life and death.”
    This made her turn to look at him, pitcher in hand. “Yours?”
    He gave his head a slight shake. “Not exactly.”
    “Whose?”
    “Don’t ask any more questions about it, okay? I can’t answer them.”
    Looking wary, undecided, she passed him a tall, narrow glass painted with flowers and filled with iced tea. Their fingertips touched as she handed it off. “Look, I said I wouldn’t tell. But the fact that you felt the need to come all the way over here to make sure I don’t…”
    She trailed off, and he could read her thoughts. He was making such a big deal of it that it fueled her curiosity. Yet just trusting her not to say anything after last night hadn’t made sense, either. “Well, I brought your stuff, too,” he pointed out, even though that had mostly been an excuse.
    “Thank you for that.” He thought she might sit down at the table with him, but instead, she leaned back against the counter across the room. “I was worried about it when I realized I’d forgotten it. It’s important to me.”
    He just nodded, then broached a topic he’d been curious about since last night. “I thought you moved away.”
    “I did.”
    “Why are you back?”
    She bit her lip, still looking wary and like she didn’t want to answer the question. Finally, she said, “I got divorced.”
    “Oh.” He hadn’t even known she’d gotten married. Then, without considering it, he asked, “Why?”
    She took the sort of deep breath that made her chest rise and fall visibly, which he