Debra Webb - In His Touch Box Set (Here To Stay, Up Close, Tempting Trace, Basic Instincts) by Debra Webb Read Free Book Online

standing over his bed, but the urge to close his eyes was too great.
    “Get up,” the voice demanded.
    Nathan snapped his eyes open and focused on the mirage once more. Paige had gotten all gussied up for some reason. Maybe, Nathan thought, he’d died and didn’t know it yet. After the way he’d behaved last night, he didn’t deserve to live anyway. If he closed his eyes, maybe he’d wake up out of his misery—in hell, where he belonged.
    “I said get up!”
    Paige jerked the pillow from under his head. Nathan moaned at the daggers of pain that shot through his skull. Damn... He was in hell.
    “Stop... My head is killing me.”
    “Good.” She gave the mattress under him a swift kick. “You must have been pretty drunk last night, because you left your front door standing wide open.”
    “Stop shouting,” he begged in a near whisper. Nathan opened his eyes and looked up at the source of his discomfort. Paige. He frowned. She really was here. She’d put her hair up somehow. He didn’t like it. Nathan liked it when all that soft, honey-colored stuff hung free around her shoulders. A blue skirt and jacket. He didn’t like the suit, either. Too stuffy. He liked Paige better in jeans and a T-shirt or naked. He smiled.
    “What the Sam Hill are you smiling about?”
    “Stop shouting, dammit,” he demanded then wished he hadn’t. He squeezed his eyes shut, groaned and held perfectly still until the room stopped spinning and the pain subsided again.
    “I have to be in court in less than three hours. Now get up!”
    Nathan opened his eyes and looked up at her again. “What is it you want, woman?”
    Paige’s dismayed gaze suddenly locked on his body. Only then did Nathan realize that he was naked. All that prevented him from being completely exposed was the corner of the sheet draped over his private parts. If she didn’t stop looking at him with that wide-eyed expression, that part would soon be making an appearance.
    She dragged her gaze to his and cleared her throat. “Windborne has gone into labor—”
    “Damnation, Blondie, why didn’t you say so?” Nathan sprang from the bed, eliciting a gasp and a gaping mouth from Paige. “Whoa.” Nathan closed his eyes and steadied himself against the vertigo. He fumbled for his jeans and jerked them on. “Did you call Walden?” he managed to ask without his head exploding.
    “The vet is with her now,” she said, her back turned. “I have to leave for Memphis. I know Robert would want one of us there.”
    “You’re right. Thanks for letting me know.” Nathan plowed a hand through his hair and ignored the queasy sensation rising in his stomach. A flashback of the previous day’s events slammed into his head. Words he’d said. Celine. Damn. He passed a hand over his face. “Look, Paige, I’m sorry about yesterday.”
    Paige didn’t turn around or speak, but her posture stiffened. The knowledge of how insensitive he’d been would have made him sick had he not already been at death’s door.
    “I didn’t mean to say all those things. I didn’t think.”
    Nathan braced himself for her rejection before he reached out and touched her rigid shoulder.
    Paige shrugged away, then turned to face him. “What would you like me to say in response to that?”
    “Nothing... I mean, I just wanted you to know that I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
    “Sure you did. That’s why you said all those things.”
    He closed his eyes and sighed long and loud. Why should she make this easy for him? He had been a total ass. “Okay,” he muttered and opened his eyes. “I wanted to hurt you. Satisfied?”
    His insides twisted as Paige’s gaze slid slowly down his body. Nathan wondered if she was even conscious of the act. When her eyes paused on his half-open fly, his groin tightened and heat flooded his loins. His breath stalled in his chest. She shouldn’t be looking at him like that. Not right now, when he was too weak to fight the hunger for what he knew he could