Read Online Shameless (The Contemporary Collection) by Jennifer Blake - Free Book Online Page A

she said, when she was sure he did not intend to leave the bedroom.
    “And to hell with the rules.”
    She shook her head, and her hair slid forward, half concealing her face. “This isn't a case of forever. Consider it, if you like, simple human contact. For that, I've followed procedure.”
    “Coming here in the middle of the night?” he asked incredulously.
    “You weren't asleep, or you would never have heard me. I tried to approach you from the front. I gave you fair warning by calling out. I moved as slowly as possible. And I don't think, if you're fair, that you can call my being here a threat.”
    “That is a matter of opinion,” he said succinctly.
    “Maybe I misunderstood,” she said, rising to her feet and moving toward him with gliding steps. “Tell me, if I come toward you now, like this, if I reached out to touch you, would I still be within the rules?”
    The wind sweeping into the room molded her gown to her every curve and hollow. It took the folds of silk, the ends of her long hair, and sent them flying toward him. As they swept out to brush him with feather strokes, she stopped. Lifting a hand, she placed the tips of her fingers against his chest one by one. Slowly, carefully, she trailed them through the golden brown tangle of hair on his chest.
    “Don't!” The word was harsh with command.
    She ceased all movement. She had been sustained until this moment by bravado and desire and an odd sense of rightness. They were beginning to desert her.
    She drew back her hand and clasped her arms around her upper body, holding tight. In tones freighted with need and despair, she said, “I don't pity you; you do a good enough job of that yourself. But you might consider, before you sacrifice both of us, that other people have problems that require human contact as much as you reject it. And they, too, feel pain.”
    He listened, it seemed, to the truth that decorated her words. He said quietly, “The only thing I'm hurting is your pride. Pride mends.”
    She considered that, and also the faint shiver she saw in his arms, which were pressed behind him as if he would push the wall aside to give himself room for retreat. Her voice was tentative, but without the sound of defeat: “Tell me you don't want me, and I'll go.”
    “That would be an obvious lie.”
    It would indeed. The glimmering lightning confirmed the evidence of his arousal.
    She said, “Why is it so complicated, then?”
    “Oh, it isn't,” he answered in challenge, “not if all you want is plain sex. I somehow thought you would expect moonlight and flowers. And promises for tomorrow.”
    “I had that,” she said, her eyes wide in the dark. “It didn't last.”
    “Nor will this. And I will hurt you,” he went on, the words fretted with desperation. “If not now, then in some moment when you most need kindness, when you are least ready.”
    Her voice aching, she whispered, “I only need tonight.”
    The wind blew around the house. The rain washed it. The lightning glimmered with the steady pulse of old, worn-out neon.
    His answer, when it came, carried the biting edge of defeated anger. “So,” he said, “do I.”
    He reached for her as if he meant to break every bone in her body, or make her regret her daring. She didn't flinch, still she could not prevent the shiver that ran over her as he closed his hands upon her. He swept her up in arms like the hard, enclosing branches of trees, and stepped with her toward the bed.
    She expected to be flung onto the mattress. Instead he sank down upon it, holding her close as he settled with her upon its yielding surface. His fingers, as he touched her, drawing her close against his long body, were careful not to bruise. His kiss, as his lips found hers, was tender beneath its demanding force.
    The ache of released tension and gladness crowded into her throat. Cammie swallowed hard and placed her hands on his shoulders, curling them around his neck. Endlessly accepting, deliberately pliant,