Mercenary's Woman by Diana Palmer Read Free Book Online Page B

woke up sweating, swearing, hating myself
for what I'd done." He laughed
hollowly. "Hating you for what I'd done, too," he added.
"I blamed us both. But I couldn't forget
how it was."
    She colored
delicately and lowered her eyes to his broad chest under the shirt he wore. The
memories were so close to the surface of her mind that it was impossible not to
glimpse them from time to time. Now, they were blatant and embarrassing.
    His lean hands moved
up to frame her face and force her eyes to meet his. He wasn't smiling.
    "No other man
will ever have the taste of you that I did, that day," he said roughly.
"You were so deliciously innocent."
    Her lips parted at
the intensity of his tone, at the faint glitter of his green eyes. "That isn't
what you said at the time!" she accused.
    "At the
time," he murmured huskily, watching her mouth, "I was hurting so much
that I didn't take time to choose
my words. I just wanted you out of the damned truck
before I started stripping you out of those tight little shorts you were wearing."
    The flush in her
cheeks got worse. The image of it was unbelievably shocking. Somehow, it had never
occurred to her that at some point he might undress her, to gain ac cess...
    "What an expression," he said, chuckling in spite of

MERCENARY'S WOMAN
    DIANA PALMER
    55

himself. "Hadn't you considered
what might happen when you came on to me that hard?"
    She shook
her head.
    His fingers slid into the blond hair at
her temples where the long braid pulled it
away from her face. "Someone should
have had a long talk with you."
    "You did," she recalled nervously.
    "Long and
explicit, the day afterward," he said, nod ding. "You didn't want to hear it, but I made you. I
liked to think that it might have saved you
from an even worse experience."
    "It wasn't
exactly a bad experience," she said, staring at his shirt button.
"That was part of the problem."
    There was a long, static silence.
"Sally," he breathed, and his mouth
moved down slowly to cover hers in the silence
of the porch.
    She stood on tiptoe
to coax him closer, lost in the mem ory of that long-ago afternoon. She felt his
hands on her arms, guiding
them up around his neck before they fell back
to her hips and lifted her into the suddenly swollen contours of his muscular body.
    She gasped, giving him the opening he
wanted, so that he could deepen the kiss. She felt the warm hardness of his mouth against
hers, the soft nip of his teeth, the deep exploration of his tongue. A warm flood of
sensation rushed
into her lower abdomen and she felt her whole body go tense with it. It was as
if her body had become perfectly attuned to this man's years ago, and could
never belong to anyone else.
    He felt her headlong
response and slowly let her back down, lifting his mouth away from hers. He
studied her face, her swollen, soft mouth, her wide eyes, her dazed expression.
    "Yes," he said huskily.
    "Yes?"
    He bent and nipped
her lower lip sensuously before he pushed her away.
    She stared up at him
helplessly, feeling as if she'd just been dropped from a great height.
    His eyes went to her
breasts and lingered on the sharp little points so noticeable at the front of her blouse, the fabric
jumping with every hard, quick beat of her heart.
    She met that
searching gaze and felt the power of it all the way to her toes.
    "You know as well
as I do that it's only a matter of time," he said softly. "It always
has been."
    She frowned. Her
mind seemed to have shut down. She couldn't quite focus, and her legs felt
decidedly weak.
    His eyes were back on
her breasts, swerving to the closed
door, and to both curtained windows before he stepped
in close and cupped her blatantly in his warm, sensuous hands.
    Sally's mouth opened
on a shocked gasp that became suddenly a moan of pleasure.
    "I won't hurt
you," he whispered, and his mouth cov ered hers hungrily.
    It was the most
passionate, adult kiss of her life, even eclipsing what had come before. His hands
found their way under her sweatshirt