Blue Velvet by Iris Johansen Read Free Book Online

nipple. “Golden silk. Lord, I’ve never seen such skin, warm and soft and silky as a small child’s. The first time I saw you in the bar I wondered if you’d feel like this.”
    “Well, now you know,” she said shakily. She felt as if that lazy finger were scorching and searing as it moved and suddenly she forgot about the weariness and throbbing ache in her temple. She moistened her lips. “Have you changed your mind?”
    “No,” he said thickly. “My mind is still as resolute as ever, it’s my body that’s undergoing all the changes. Are you this tan all over?”
    She nodded. “I like the sun. There’s a little pool in the rain forest where we keep the Cessna that I sunbathe next to sometimes.”
    His finger touched the perky pink tip. “Nude?” he asked huskily.
    “Yes.” She could barely get the word out. “There’s never anyone around.” Her throat was dry and tight and she was sure he could hear the beating of her heart caused by his gossamer light touch. She hadn’t realized before how sensitive her body could be, how a tentative caress could send hot signals to her entire body. She didn’t have to look down to realize that her nipple was budding and her breast flowering for him. She could see it in the darkening of Beau’s eyes.Strange, she felt as if all their responses were now curiously linked.
    “I’m going to watch you do that someday,” he said, his voice as velvet soft as his finger. “I’m going to sit and watch the sun pour down on you like golden rain, caressing you and making you glow.” His thumb and index finger pinched gently and she felt an aching incompletion in her loins. “And then I’m going to come to you and make you glow for me. I want to feel you open and flower and tremble.” She could see the wild cadence of the pulse beat in his temple. “I want to know that everything I do to you will make you shine and melt and flow.” He drew a deep shuddering breath and shook his head as if to clear it. “I must be going crazy. For a minute I could actually see you lying there waiting for me to come to you.” His hand dropped away and he stepped backward. “Come on, we’d better get you in the shower or I’m going to forget you’re not fair game.” He pulled her to her feet. “Get out of the rest of those clothes while I find something for you to put on.” He strode to the built-in closet and slid back the door. “Tomorrow you’ll have to make do with a pair of my shortsand a T-shirt while your own things are being laundered. Do you often have to make a run for it with only the clothes on your back?”
    “No, this is the first time.” She kicked off her tennis shoes and pulled off her jeans, her gaze fixed on his back as he riffled through the closet. “Actually, we don’t move all that often. Jeffrey sets up operations and lets his clients come to him. We’ve been on Castellano for about four years.”
    “You make him sound like a corporate attorney,” Beau drawled. “But from what I hear about Castellano, it must have been ideally suited to your friend’s occupation.” He pulled out an ice-blue satin negligee trimmed in fine Valenciennes lace. “I thought I remembered seeing this in there,” he said, looking at it critically. “Barbara must have forgotten it when she left the ship at Barbados. The blue should be good with your eyes. Do you object to wearing another woman’s clothes?”
    Barbara? How many of his mistresses had occupied this cabin and why did the thought of those women hurt so much? “No, I don’t mind,”she said softly. “I’d be awfully ungrateful to be that petty, wouldn’t I?”
    “I’m glad you’re so sensible. I know quite a few women who’d …” He glanced back over his shoulder and the words died away. She was totally naked and standing there gazing at him with clear unflinching honesty. No coyness, just the quiet serene acceptance that had so moved him before. There were dark circles beneath her eyes and