Read Online State Secrets by Linda Lael Miller - Free Book Online

Holly’s hand casually in his and led her back to the livingroom as though it were his house. As though they had all the time in the world.
    “Maybe we shouldn’t—” she sputtered, lifting his hand so that she could peer at the watch on her own wrist. “It’s getting late—”
    David sat down on one of the soft Indian pillows facing the fireplace and pulled Holly after him. She tumbled against him, and her heart lurched into her throat at even that small contact, driving the breath out of her lungs and causing a curious ringing sound in her ears.
    She settled herself primly on the other pillow, careful not to look at him. She knew that she would see the familiar, quiet amusement shining in his navy blue eyes.
    “Holly.”
    She swallowed, knotting her hands together in her lap. “What?”
    “Look at me.”
    She looked at him because doing otherwise would have been foolish and petulant. Even infantile. “So, I’m looking already,” she said.
    He laughed and that was at variance with the look in his eyes which, instead of humor, betrayed a reluctance of some kind. A hurtful reluctance.
    Holly was stung. David wanted to resist her as badly as she wanted to resist him! Wasn’t she attractive? Did he find her— David bent his head and kissed her, and an almost inaudible groan rumbled up through his chest and brushed against her lips. He was only nibbling at her mouth, tasting it as though it were a delicacy to be savored. He muttered something, and to a dazed Holly, it sounded as though he’d said, “Why?”
    She couldn’t think of that now. She couldn’t think of anything except the havoc that reluctant kiss was causing inside her. She shivered and placed her hands on his strong shoulders, where they moved of their own accord to caress his neck.
    He kissed her in earnest then, his tongue exploring the sweet depths of her mouth, enlisting her own to respond in quick, fevered parries. His hand moving gently up and down the length of her thigh caused the flesh hidden beneath to quiver.
    Holly wanted to die and she wanted to live forever. She wanted to stop and she drew him nearer, allowing him to shift her body and his own so that they were both prone before the crackling fire.
    His hand left her thigh to move up over her hip, underneath her soft mulberry sweater, over the flesh at her waist, over her rib cage. He freed her from his sorcerer’s kiss to nibble gently, provocatively, at her earlobe and her neck.
    “I want you, Holly,” he said in that forthright way of his, his voice a gruff caress against the base of her neck.
    Holly shivered, even though there was a heat pulsing inside her that made her long to fling off her clothes. “David, I…we…”
    “I know,” he chuckled, and his hand had found the catch at the front of her bra. There was a feeling of sweet, wanton freedom as her breasts were released, and then his fingers were soothing her, searching out a nipple that already awaited them at strictest attention. “Tell me to stop.”
    If Holly hadn’t been so bedazzled, she would have slapped him. “I can’t…” she admitted, her words fallingaway to a groan as he found that arching nipple and rolled it gently between his fingers.
    He drew her sweater slowly upward, his hand cupping the captured breast, shaping it for conquering. When he bent his head to lave the throbbing peak softly with his tongue, Holly gasped with pleasure and arched her back in reflexive surrender.
    “We…can’t do this…” he managed to say as his mouth blazed a path from the conquered breast to the one that awaited sweet defeat. “We can’t…”
    “I know,” Holly agreed. But when his tongue touched the untended nipple, she knotted her hands in David’s rich, mink-soft hair and held him close.
    Holly Llewellyn was to wonder many times, sometimes with regret and sometimes with relief, what would have happened if the telephone hadn’t rung when it did. Its cold, jarring jangle made David thrust himself away