Every Breath She Takes by Norah Wilson Read Free Book Online Page A

Marlena’s laugh, seductive and clear, from the front bedroom. Limp with relief, Lauren sank down at the kitchen table and sent a quick thank-you skyward.
    The next moment she heard a masculine growl and a crashing sound, followed by a feminine squeal. Flushing, Lauren leapt up and fled to the porch, the screen door banging shut behind her.
    “At it already, are they?”
    She jumped at Cal’s voice, which came from the vicinity of her feet. She looked down to see him sitting on the steps.
    “Never mind. I can hear for myself.” He stood. “How about a walk? If we climb that ridge, sunset’ll make it worthwhile.”
    She weighed her options.
    One, she could go back inside and try not to think about the fact that Marlena might be sowing the seeds for her own demise.
    Two, she could shake Cal off and leave him to brood alone to the accompaniment of the noisy lovers.
    Or three, she could walk with him, try to distract him, maybe even defuse the rage he must be feeling. Divorced or not, with that history, he had to be pissed.
    “Sure, I’d love a walk,” she heard herself say.
    Wordlessly they set off. When after a few minutes Cal still hadn’t spoken, Lauren took the lead.
    “Tell me about these foothills.”
    He obliged readily enough, naming the peaks that rose in the distance. He told her how the meadow looked in spring and how the now dry streambed could swell in a flash flood. To her relief, he wasn’t the tangle of angry emotion she’d expected.
    On the other hand, he had a very good poker face, she thought, as they reached the top of the ridge and stopped. The streambed wound away from them far below, and the sun was a fiery ball dipping toward the horizon. “It’s beautiful,” she said.
    “Hmmm.”
    She glanced at him then. Expecting to see his poker face, her heart took a bounding leap. There was nothing inscrutable about his expression just now. He was looking at her hungrily.
    Suddenly he was too close, too immediate, too tempting.
    “Lauren, I think I have to kiss you. Now’s the time to dodge if you don’t want me to.”
    His husky words electrified her. She should protest, would protest, but the seconds ticked by. In that short span, her imagination slipped its leash. Already she imagined what his lips would feel like, how they’d taste. When his hard hand cupped her face, an involuntary shiver raced up her spine, but she made no objection. Then his lips were on hers.
    It wasn’t what she expected. Instead of hot demand, there was testing, tasting. He shaped her lips with his, tilting his head this way and that, as though searching for the best angle. Her heart pounding, she conceded they were all good. But she wanted more. Abandoning any pretense that she didn’t want this, hadn’t thought about it since the first moment she’d laid eyes on him, she caught his head and really kissed him.
    Finally, finally , he kissed her the way his eyes had promised these past days. His mouth was dark and male and sinful, and she gloried in the taste of him.
    It was like being hauled up into the funnel of a tornado, she thought dazedly. His mouth robbed her of breath, seeming to pull the very essence from her. His hard hands flashed over her, heating her flesh and making her head spin. Mindlessly, she arched into him, welcoming him. With another deep-throated sound, he ground himself against her. Already her insides were liquefying, readying to accept him. It was madness, but she prayed it would never end.
    He splayed a hand inside the open vee of her shirt to explore the hollows of her collarbones. She made a small protesting sound when he abandoned her mouth, but it turned into a sigh as his lips found the leaping pulse at the base of her throat. All she could think was how good that hot mouth felt, how it might feel on her breasts. Then it was back on her mouth, kissing her even more urgently than before.
    Anywhere , she thought. He could touch her anywhere with that talented mouth, those clever hands.