Battle Prize by Stephanie James Read Free Book Online Page B

Dallas, but there was no denying both the physical strength and the willpower of Gage Fletcher. His determination to succeed was intimidating in itself.
    "I certainly am. Why else do you think I got here almost at dawn?"
    "Hoping to catch the enemy sleeping and undefended?" she shot back sweetly.
    "Dawn raids are often the most successful kind. Go take your shower, Rani. You know you're curious about what I'll try next."
    Chin up in haughty denial, Rani started out of the kitchen, only to have her wrist snagged. Startled, she swung back to face Gage. "You said you weren't here to assault me!" she began in automatic protest as he lowered his head to take her lips.
    "Think of this as a salute before battle," he muttered. "I can't resist" He kissed her with a lazy thoroughness that held only a hint of the previous night's overwhelming passion and then he let her go.
    Once again Rani beat a hasty retreat, allowing herself to acknowledge for the first time that she half wished Gage hadn't left so obediently the evening before. But he had, after walking her back to her door. He'd relinquished his hold on her without any argument and simply melted back into the night from which he had come. Rani had told herself that that was the way she wanted it but even then she'd been lying.
    As she stepped beneath the shower's spray she allowed herself to remember fully just how enthralled she had been in his arms. Never had her body reacted with such instinctive passion. She couldn't understand how it had arisen out of the argument they had been having, but it had seemed to explode into life the moment he had reached for her. Was this how it had been between her parents? That thought made her more uneasy than she had ever been in her life. She wanted no part of a relationship that resembled that of her parents!
    But this was different, Rani consoled herself. Her association with Gage existed solely because of the business that lay between them. And Rani had never had any objection to holding her own on the battlefield of business. Indeed, her hard work and determination to succeed in a man's world had more than once thrown her into conflict with outdated male prejudice and chauvinism. That she could handle. That kind of battle was safe because it never involved the emotional or passionate side of her nature.
    She told herself the conflict with Gage was a business conflict, one she could handle. Yet, how could she deny the way the battle had leaped from the business barricades to a far more intimate firefight the night before, when he had taken her in his arms?
    If only there weren't this other matter between them. If only he weren't a paid bounty hunter swom to bring her back to Dallas so he could make good on his word to Prescott. If only he weren't deliberately laying siege to her. If only . . .
    She thought again of his injunction the previous night Did he really believe they could separate the physical side of their relationship from the war they were conducting? And where did that leave her? In the middle of a full-scale affair with Gage Fletcher.
    An affair with Gage. The thought was strangely alarming. It brought with it visions of passion accompanied by equally intense images of conflict It was not the kind of relationship she had ever sought Nor, she admitted reluctantly, had it ever been offered in quite that way. Why was it that at her age she was dangerously intrigued by such a man?
    There was no question of love being involved, she warned herself. No pretense of it on either side. How could there be? They had only met a couple of days earlier and they were at odds over the Prescott business. That matter wasn't going to neatly disappear no matter how much Gage wanted to pretend it could be relegated to another battlefield. One could have an affair with one's enemy, Rani decided grimly, but one didn't fall in love with him.
    But she was thirty-two years old and she had been protecting herself so long from the kind of relationship