Read Online The Cutting Edge by Linda Howard - Free Book Online

stood entwined, their mouths greedy and clinging, until Tessa felt light-headed from lack of air and pulled her mouth free; then she bent her head and rested it against his shoulder. The want, the need, that vibrated between them was staggering, and from the pressure of his body she knew that he was strongly aroused, yet he seemed to be waiting for a signal from her. She couldn’t give it to him; the act of physical love was an act of commitment for her, and she wasn’t certain enough ofher feelings on the basis of two meetings to let him have that intimacy. Gently he rubbed the back of her neck, easing the tension in the taut tendons he found there.
    â€œLet’s go to bed,” he murmured, kissing her temple and the shell of her ear, outlining the rim of her ear with the very tip of his tongue and setting off small ripples of pleasure that flowed over her body. “I know you think it’s too soon, but waiting won’t change anything. I’m going to have you, and we both know it.”
    She closed her eyes in an agony of wanting and indecision. He was so warm and strong, and she wanted him so much that she was nothing but an empty ache inside. “I’m afraid I’m going to fall in love with you,” she blurted, her voice muffled against his shoulder, and she knew that she lied. She was afraid, yes, because it was far too late for her; she was already so much in love with him that she couldn’t pull back now, and no lecture from her common sense was going to change it. She’d been waiting for him all of her life. She could no more halt the tide of her emotions than she could stop breathing.
    Brett went very still. Even the hand on the nape of her neck ceased its motion. Love, in the romantic sense, wasn’t something that existed for him, and it wasn’t something that he wanted. Until she’d said the word, the idea hadn’t even occurred to him. He’d taken her out to dinner the first time for a twofold reason: because he wanted to take her to bed, and to question her about the other employees at Carter Engineering. His physical desire had increased until the heat of it seared him, until he couldn’t sleep and tossed restlessly on the twisted sheets, his body taut and frustrated. She intrigued himas no other woman had ever done; she was both bold and wary, inviting and resisting at the same time. For the first time in his life, he resented the thought of other men. He didn’t want her associating with Sammy Wallace for a reason quite apart from the fact that the man was a suspected embezzler. He wanted all her time to be his, all her kisses to be his, and a primitive possessiveness ate at him. When he thought of the two men she’d been engaged to, he wanted to shake her for allowing them to get close enough to her that she’d even considered marriage.
    But he didn’t want the entanglements of emotion. Love was greedy and demanding, and he didn’t want that sort of emotional intimacy. His mind was always a little aloof, always in control, and he wanted to stay that way; he’d seen too many men make complete fools out of themselves, all in the name of some confused emotional high that they called love.
    Already Tessa was intruding into his thoughts, when he should have his mind strictly on business. The image of her sleek, silky body stretched out on white sheets, waiting for him, was one that burned in his mind at all hours, entering his thoughts when he least expected it. She was distracting him from the clandestine cat-and-mouse game he and Evan were playing with a thief, and he wanted to take her, satiate himself with her, so he could put her out of his thoughts and get on with the job at hand.
    The thought of her falling in love with him jolted him. What would it be like to have this fancy, flirty woman belonging to him? Could she love, or was she just playing with the word? Had she really loved eitherof those men she’d been