Luring Lucy by Lori Foster Read Free Book Online

I’d have known that David was going to cheat.”
    Bram withdrew, and for several moments he was silent. “Maybe,” he finally said, “I just know you better than you knew David. Maybe I’m more observant where you’re concerned.”
    Lucy stiffened, hearing his words as an insult. David had told her many times that she neglected him. She hoped Bram wasn’t saying the same. “How so?”
    â€œI watched you marry David.” His voice was so low she could barely hear him. His blond hair, still damp, blew straight back from his forehead. The sun glinted off his mirrored glasses. He hadn’tshaved that morning, and a light shadowing of whiskers darkened his lean jawline and upper lip.
    He had the most sensual mouth Lucy had ever seen. Beautiful white teeth, a strong chin, high cheekbones. But it was the innate sensuality in his eyes, in his every gesture, that usually had women taking a second and third look.
    Right now, there was an expression on Bram’s handsome face that made her stomach curl with some unnamed emotion.
    â€œI knew what you felt then, too,” he said. “During the wedding, and after. I’ve always been able to read you.” He smiled slightly, turning her muscles to soup, and added, “When you were pregnant, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.”
    Lucy remembered his fascination with her then, the questions he’d asked, the awe in his expression the first time she’d convinced him to feel the baby kick. She also remembered how he’d avoided her whenever he could. He hadn’t come around nearly as often during her two pregnancies. Not until the end of her second pregnancy, when he’d realized that David couldn’t keep up with his work at the office and help her around the house, too. Then suddenly Bram was there, proving himself a true friend by keeping the grass cut, carrying laundry up and down the steps for her. He always came when David got home, and together they’d get the extra chores done. Lucy never saw Bram except when David was there.
    Something about that memory nagged at her, but she put the thought from her mind.
    â€œWhen I was pregnant,” she half-teased, but knew it was true, “I was fat.”
    A grin flickered over his mouth. “Lush.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou weren’t fat, babe, you were lush.” They neared the boatdocks where vacationers could purchase bait, basic groceries, and other necessities. “I remember thinking you got sexier the further you went along in your pregnancy. Your breasts were incredible, and your eyes were so pretty. And after Kent was born and you nursed him . . . it used to choke me up.”
    Lucy leaned around to see his face, stunned at what he’d said. “It didn’t.”
    â€œHell yes, it did.”
    He sounded so sincere, her heart twisted. Without thinking, she touched him. His thigh was hard and hot and roughened with hair. She felt the muscles flex, go rigid. “Why, Bram?”
    He expertly steered the boat into the dock where a worker grabbed the lead line and secured it to a grommet. Bram just sat there, his hands resting loosely on the steering wheel, his gaze straight ahead. Around them, people on a pontoon chatted and laughed. Another man sat on the side of his speedboat, reeling in a ski line.
    Bram went so long without answering her, Lucy began to think he hadn’t heard her at all.
    Then his hand covered hers on his thigh and he pulled off his sunglasses. His golden brown eyes blazed with intensity, with emotion.
And with desire.
    He lifted her hand and kissed her palm, the pads of her fingers. “I got choked up,” he explained against the sensitive skin of her inner wrist, “because I knew I’d never have what you had. And I thought it was all pretty damn special.”
    Lucy blinked hard. She cared about Bram, she always had. Now, more than ever, she