A Bride For Abel Greene by Cindy Gerard Read Free Book Online Page B

Black and bitey, just the way you made it last night.”
    He set her coffee on the table in front of her, determined to say his peace. But he made a mistake then. He looked at her. He hadn’t intended more than a glance, but his gaze snagged on her eyes as she inhaled the scent of the coffee with an exuberant, almost childlike pleasure.
    Then he made another mistake. He let his attention linger and drift from the waifish elegance of her bone structure to the wet tangle of short, dark hair softly wisping around her face and finally to the full, lush ripeness of her lips as she brought the cup to her mouth.
    “Umm.” She closed her eyes and exhaled a sumptuous sigh. “Good. I needed this bad.”
    He pulled out a chair, his jaw clenched against the picture she made, all comfy and content as a cat and looking sexier than a squirt of a woman like her had a right to. Spinning the chair around backward, he straddled it and crossed his forearms over its back.
    “How’s your hand,” he asked gruffly, noticing, not for the first time, the slight swelling of her knuckle, and wrestling with the guilt that he had been the cause of it.
    “About as good as your jaw, I suspect.” She grinned sheepishly. “Sorry about that. Sometimes...sometimes I act before I think.”
    And he never acted before he thought it out thoroughly. That’s why it caught him completely off guard when he had to stop himself from returning her smile. The word infectious came to mind. She smiled, and it did something to his insides that was totally foreign, undeniably pleasant—and entirely unacceptable.
    This chitchat had to stop. It reeked of coziness—and he’d never done cozy in his life.
    “Look,” he said, staring at the steam rising from his cup so he wouldn’t be distracted by all that soft feminine warmth nestled across the table from him. “We need to talk about this...”
    “Situation?” she suggested, her eyes bright when he paused.
    His gaze shot to hers. “Yeah. Situation,” he agreed, marginally miffed that she’d not only finished his sentence for him but pinned down the word he’d been searching for.
    “When I placed that ad,” he began again, shifting uncomfortably in his chair, “there were...” Again he let the line trail off, groping for the right word.
    “Circumstances?”
    He arched a brow. “Yeah,” he said tightly. “There were circumstances. Just like I suspect you might have been experiencing some circumstances of your own when you ran across it.”
    He waited a beat. When she said nothing, just met his gaze with that fresh, open, green-eyed expectancy, he cleared his throat and continued. “The truth is, I never figured anyone would actually...”
    “Answer it?” she supplied, looking helpful.
    He set his cup down. Hard. “Do you always finish other people’s sentences for them?”
    “Sorry.” She grinned, looking a little embarrassed but not one bit sorry. “Old habit. Bad habit,” she amended, pulling a contrite face. “I’ll try to control myself.”
    He closed his eyes, scratched his jaw and told himself he didn’t find her or her impertinence refreshing, cute or appealing.
    “And I’ll try to be direct,” he said with businesslike gruffness. “But do I really have to spell this out for you?”
    For the first time since she’d sat down, her composure faltered. She swallowed, then averted her gaze to her coffee. “I guess maybe you do.”
    Her sudden vulnerability unsettled him. The last thing he wanted was for her to see how much. Edgy, uncomfortable, he rose, stalked to the counter and snagged the coffeepot.
    “This...your coming here...it never should have happened.”
    When he turned back to her all the color had drained from her face. “What are you saying?”
    He set his jaw and told himself nothing was going to sway him. “I’m saying I never should have placed the ad. And you never should have answered it.”
    “But you did,” she pointed out unnecessarily, the tight edge of