Atlanta Heat by Lora Leigh Read Free Book Online Page B

as she moved across the room to the kitchenette. She was wearing one of his t-shirts and a pair of his sister’s cotton sleep leggings and socks. Damn, she looked too young to be here, too young for the thoughts running through his brain.
    He watched her ass as she reached up into a cabinet and pulled out a bowl. His teeth clenched in an effort to maintain control as the twin cheeks bunched and rippled when she moved back to the stove and filled the bowl with chili.
    When she turned, his gaze was lifted innocently to her face as he fought every male instinct to drop his eyes to those pretty unbound breasts again.
    S HE COULD HAVE HIM , a little voice reminded Emerson. How many times over the past two years had he let her know just how easily she could have him?
    “So when can I get out of here and back to my life? Any news yet?”
    “What’s the hurry? Do you have someone besides the admiral waiting for you on the outside?”
    She didn’t like the tone of his voice, didn’t like the friendliness in it, or the silent invitation to spill her guts to him. She had no secrets; she had no reason to feel sorry for herself.
    “I have a full life.” She shrugged easily.
    “And an empty bed.” His voice lowered, the black velvet tone stroking over her senses as he moved toward her.
    “My bed is none of your business, Macey. When I want a man there, I have no trouble filling it.”
    And how many times had she had done that? Too few. And they had been gone too quickly.
    “Why are you so defensive with me, Em?” he asked then, his tone too soft, too knowing, too sexy. “You snap and snipe at me as though I’ve done something to hurt you. If I have, I’d be more than willing to kiss it and make it better.”
    He was teasing. That playful, come-hither male sexiness that she found so hard to resist. That she had to resist. Otherwise, there would be no way she could hide the feelings she had for him. Feelings that went beyond scratching a little sexual itch while they were confined together.
    “If I’m so hard to be around, why did you take this job?” she asked.
    “Why did I take this assignment?” He leaned close, his lips curving into a smile, his dark eyes gleaming with sexual intent. “I took this job to finally get into your pants, Em. To get you under me,around me, and to get so deep inside you that the last thing you think about is pushing me away. That’s why I let your godfather maneuver me like the good little SEAL I am. Now, answer my question. Why, Emerson Delaney, do you try to push me away every damned time I get close enough to do that?”
    “I don’t know, Macey,” she snarled. “Maybe I don’t want to join the Macey’s Castoff’s club. Sorry, Lieutenant, but being part of the crowd never appealed to me, and being a part of your crowd appeals even less. So why don’t you stop trying to seduce me, get on your handy-dandy made-for-spying computer and find me a way out of this. Otherwise, we’re going to end this little fiasco as enemies, rather than the fragile friendship I thought we had managed to maintain.”
    His brows lifted, amusement filling his expression.
    “Do you let all your friends suck your hard little nipples in your godfather’s study, Em? If you do, I think I’m going to need to spank you.”
    Flames raced through her body. Warning alarms were clanging through her head. But when his head lowered, his hand sliding into her hair to hold her still, feeling his lips on hers again, she was lost. Lost in the touch of a man she knew she could never hold, and unwilling to break free, because nothing, at no time in her life, had ever felt as right as Macey’s kiss. Macey’s touch. As belonging to Macey, if only for this moment.

S IX
    HE WASN’T STOPPING THIS time.
    Macey eased over the back of the couch, keeping his lips on Emerson’s, tasting the wild passion and honeyed sweetness of her kiss, her tongue, letting himself become trapped in her pleasure and his own.
    This was the