Read Online Touch Me by Christie Ridgway - Free Book Online Page A

tragedy…right?
    She rubbed at her forehead and contemplated the benefits of confession. “Lil…”
    Her sister set the wooden spoon across the top of the pot and turned down the heat. “All right,” she said, pinning Rose with that big sister-stare. “What’s the matter?”
    “Would you…” In their younger years, they’d never swapped stories of their romantic adventures and pitfalls. Then Lily had gone off to college and Rose had moved to Seattle. It was only after the twin blows brought on by their dad and Blake that she’d opened up to her older sibling about her dented heart.
    Not once had she ever pried about Lily’s high school boyfriend.
    The sound of glass against granite caught Rose’s attention. Lily slid a tumbler filled with iced tea nearer and then sipped from her own. “Would I…?”
    Rose pulled in a quick breath. “Would you tell me about your relationship with Payne? I mean, what happened?”
    On another sip of tea, Lily looked off into the distance. “I remember the first time I saw him. The fallen angel looks…so blond, and with those devilish blue eyes.” Her sidelong glance met Rose’s gaze. “Irresistible, huh?”
    She looked away, unsure if she should admit she’d wanted him then too.
    “Every girl had a crush on him,” Lily added.
    “But you got him,” Rose pointed out. Raising her glass, she breathed in the leafy aroma of the liquid. Goose bumps broke out as she remembered that same scent on Payne’s breath earlier that day as his mouth neared.
    To kiss her neck.
    Her jaw.
    But not her mouth.
    Doesn’t ever kiss a woman on the lips, can you imagine?
    Yes, he’d avoided hers, but the heat of him had riveted her anyway. His heavy body, the bulge of his sex, the clutch of his hands. Her fingers had wandered to the burning skin of his back and dared to slide beneath the waistband of his jeans.
    Discovering he’d gone commando, her own skin had flashed with fire.
    More proof he was uncivilized, uncontainable…unreachable for a woman like Rose who’d never been with a man who went naked beneath denim. Who’d only been with Blake and a couple of other men like him, who wore silky boxers instead of scars. Whose mouth-to-mouth kisses hadn’t been nearly as arousing as the wet touch of Payne’s tongue on her pulse.
    She set the tea on the island, pushed it away, and tried returning to her point. “You had him…but then you broke up.”
    Lily looked away. “That’s a little complicated. Bottom line, we weren’t suited. I think I just wanted a little walk on the wild side.”
    “He was your first?” Embarrassed by her own audacity, Rose’s face went hot.
    Lily’s eyes widened, then she laughed. “This conversation needs fashion magazines, mud packs, and lots of junk food.”
    “Sorry,” Rose mumbled. “It’s none of my business.”
    Swooping her baby out of his seat, Lily laughed again. “I’m not shy. I thought you were.”
    “Maybe I’m repressed,” she said glumly.
    Lily shook her head. “This from the woman who left here the other day in a risqué French maid’s costume.”
    “That was different. That was…” For Payne, who had always managed to draw the unexpected from Rose.
    At first, it was just a smile he coaxed out of her, by showing up at the house one afternoon, while she and Lily were alone, their mom and dad at work. In one hand he’d held a tall cup, filled with a healthy smoothie for Lily, full of protein acids, soy oils, and other nasty ingredients hidden in peach and mango slush. In the other, was the ice cream sundae he’d bought for Rose, complete with fudge, whipped cream, and a cherry. For a moment she’d felt five years old, until he’d handed over a long-handled spoon and she realized it had been made with two scoops of rocky road and one of mocha almond fudge—the very same order she’d requested at the ice cream counter a couple of weeks before.
    He’d remembered.
    More than a handful of times that year he’d come across