Read Online Strapless by Leigh Riker - Free Book Online Page B

frowned again. It made him look totally endearing, even if he did show signs—serious ones—of being too much like her family. “If I was your father,” he said, proving the point, “I wouldn’t let you live in such a big city. Too dangerous.”
    â€œLet me? You’re not my father.” Darcie ran one finger down his belly, then lower. “ This is too dangerous.”
    That distracted him. All over again. Just as she hoped, he reached for another packet on the night table. “What happens when I run out of condoms?”
    â€œWe’ll…renegotiate.” She took him in her hand to help. Silk and velvet, strength and vulnerability. “We’ll improvise.”
    â€œSounds like a plan.”
    He made it sound like a question, but Darcie agreed. All she would let herself think about was this: lovemaking, long and lazy, to be relished, the likes of which she’d never known before—take that, Merrick—or perhaps ever would again. They shared the last of the beer…five, or was it six? And over and over Darcie indulged herself, herfantasies, the tug of need low inside, for the rest of the night.
    In his arms, she dreaded the dawn—and ignored the first flutters of nausea.
    Until a few faint fingers of light finally penetrated the wall of windows in room 3101 of the upscale Westin Sydney. Then Darcie Elizabeth Baxter startled awake, hot bile in her throat—and bolted for the bathroom.
    Â 
    Darcie gave one last gasp, swallowed twice, and straightened. Resting back on her heels on the marble floor, in the doorway of the toilet stall, she swiped the moistened washcloth over her face again, her parched lips, then drew long, deep breaths to steady her stomach.
    There. She would live now. Worse luck.
    Then she realized she was no longer alone.
    Without looking up, Darcie knew he was there, leaning a strong, broad shoulder against the green frosted glass of the bathroom door—and shirtless of course. A quick glance in the vanity mirror confirmed his naked chest. Darcie shuddered while her heart did a little tap dance of appreciation. All that expanse of sunbrowned skin over sleek muscle, warm and smooth under her fingers during the only half-remembered night of casual sex and talk…the feel of the silky dark hair that swept across his breast-bone…the lure of tight, dark twin male nipples…
    â€œHi. How’s it going?” he said.
    Deep, throaty morning voice. Hint of amusement.
    â€œIt’s not. I hope.”
    He laughed, low and intimate, reminding Darcie not only of her illness—wretched, so wretched to be sick away from home, sick in a strange man’s company—well, not exactly a stranger now, she had to admit—reminding her of the intimacies they’d shared. Now this…she heard the familiar chink of a can against the gold signet ring on his little finger. Darcie’s nose wrinkled at the smell of hops, malt and yeast.
    Oh God, he was drinking a beer.
    â€œWhat time is it?” she said, aghast.
    â€œAlmost six.”
    â€œSix a.m.? ”
    â€œDown Under. I can’t tell you what time it is in the States. You drank too much.”
    â€œI screwed too much,” she muttered.
    â€œThe beer, the time difference, jet lag. I couldn’t help but hear the chunder here.”
    Her stomach rolled again. “Chunder?”
    â€œA local term for kissing the porcelain god. Aussie-style.” He took another swig. “Chunder on the Paramatta,” he mused. “Now there’s a name for a movie.”
    â€œParamatta?”
    â€œIt’s the river that flows into Sydney Harbour. I know, that doesn’t make any sense, but you have to admit it’s got title appeal. Still, there can’t be a worse sound for another human being to listen to,” he said.
    Which didn’t seem to bother him. If he could drink beer at this time of day he had a stomach like steel. The six-pack