Legacy by Jayne Ann Krentz Read Free Book Online Page A

stealthily as any predator. "Conn?"
    "There's no need to go looking under your bed. Honor. I'm right here."
    Standing very still in his arms, Honor watched with fascination as he lowered his mouth to hers. He was there, all right, filling up every inch of her beautifully designed bedroom with his own brand of strength and presence. All thoughts of a vague wrongness in the atmosphere went out of her head as he took her lips. Conn Landry felt very, very right.
    It was not the sort of kiss she normally expected and received the first time she kissed a new date.
    Landry's mouth did not move on hers with the tentative, questioning approach a man generally used in the beginning.
    Instead he took her mouth as though he had been anticipating the action for a long while. The hunger in him was blunt and dangerously near the surface. What should have bothered her was that her body seemed to respond with the same feeling of being suddenly on the verge of discovery and release. It was an exciting, exhilarating sensation.
    Her arms came up to wind slowly around his neck as he coaxed apart her lips. She shuddered a little as his tongue swept behind the barrier of her teeth. His response was to tighten his hands on her waist.
    Conn pulled her into his heat with irresistible pressure, gently forcing her into total awareness of the tautness of his thighs. And all the while he explored her mouth, drinking hungrily from the intimate, moist depths.
    Honor's lashes closed slumberously and her body was invaded with a sweet lethargy that was shot through with red threads of anticipation.
    "Honor, honey, you taste so good," Conn murmured in a husky growl as he reluctantly freed her mouth.
    He sampled the hidden skin behind the curve of her hair, his teeth nibbling with exquisite gentleness.
    "Spicy, sweet and sexy. I knew you'd taste this way."
    Reflexively her nails kneaded his shoulders, the coral tips sinking deeply into the gray fabric of his jacket.
    He groaned and raised his hands slowly along her rib cage until his thumbs rested just beneath the curve of her unconfined breasts.
    "Oh, Conn."
    "We're going to be good in bed together, you and I," he interrupted with soft satisfaction. He grazed the pad of his thumb across the crest of one breast and felt it flower to life beneath the yellow-gold silk.
    His absolute certainty got through the sensual haze that seemed to be clouding her senses. "No," she whispered. "Not bed. Not yet." And, if she had an ounce of genuine intelligence, she added silently, not ever. She should know better than to play with fire at her age.
    "I won't rush you," he vowed soothingly as he continued to glide the flat of his thumb across her silk-sheathed nipple.
    Questioningly she lifted her head to meet his intent gaze and found herself staring into gray, bottomless seas that swirled with masculine desire. The depths of his hunger startled her even as it called to her.
    "I think," she began carefully, "that you'll do things exactly as you want to do them, regardless of whether or not it means rushing me."
    "Don't be afraid of me, Honor," he rasped against her ear. "There's no need."
    "What's that supposed to mean?" she asked urgently, a strange panic sizzling through her.

    "Nothing. Just relax. I want you, but I can wait." He used his strong hands on the nape of her neck, gentling her tense body until she did as he asked and relaxed against him. "I can wait," he repeated half under his breath.
    There was something about the way he touched her, the way his hardness felt against her softness that was undermining all her defenses, Honor realized vaguely. The attraction between them was so unexpectedly strong, so out of the ordinary, that she wasn't fully prepared to handle it. Time was the key.
    She sensed that much.
    Apparently Landry did, too. Slowly he eased himself away from her, mouth crooked just a bit at the edge. "I'll give you a little time, Honor." He brushed his mouth lightly across her parted lips. "But I think