Nauti Temptress by Lora Leigh Read Free Book Online

parted.
    In that second, just as she was certain she was going to feel his lips against hers, feel the kiss she’d ached for, dreamed of, fantasized about, the harsh, strident buzz of his cell phone suddenly shocked her back into awareness.
    Eve jerked away from him, her breathing harsh, staring at him in disbelief as something dangerous, something dark and sensual flashed across his expression a second before that tilted smile curled one side of his lips.
    “Run, little lamb,” he whispered. “Hurry and escape before the big, bad wolf gobbles you up.”
    She turned and did just that.
    Rushing into her room and quickly closing and locking the door, she glimpsed the light of his cell phone suddenly flaring on as he answered the call, casting his expression in sharp relief.
    A chill raced over her body.
    As he stared at her, as the glare of the phone’s light revealed the shadows and contours of his expression, a flash of pure trepidation rushed through her senses. In his face, in his eyes, she saw hard, certain determination.
    He had let her get away this time.
    He had let her get away each time he’d been close in the past two and a half years.
    The next time . . .
    She wouldn’t be nearly so lucky—the next time.

TWO
    It was so hot in the room, she was dying.
    Or was she so hot she was dying?
    Eve tried turning the AC down, hoping the additional cold air would help cool her body, but she wasn’t quite lucky enough for that to help.
    This was killing her.
    What the hell had she done to deserve this? To want a man, to ache for him until it felt like her body was on fire, and to know—know to the tips of her toenails—that allowing herself to have him would only end badly.
    There were some men a woman just knew weren’t good for her. Brogan Campbell had the potential to be just such a man.
    It was there in that cynicism that wasn’t quite hidden. The mockery that lingered at the edge of every smile she’d ever seen on his lips.
    He watched the world as though he knew all its cruel, bitter secrets and merciless games. He knew them, practiced them, used them.
    Not that he was a deliberately cruel person, she didn’t think.
    Oh, hell, no, she was taking that damned thought back. Only a cruel, merciless, coldhearted, soulless man could have done to a woman what he had done to her outside.
    Fists clenched in the blankets, she fought the need to relieve a little of the tension. Just marginally. Just enough that she could survive the aching burn in the depths of her pussy.
    She’d never wanted a man like this. What the hell was up with it?
    All he had to do was be in the room to make her crazy to have him touch her, and now it was just going to be a hundred times worse. As far as she was concerned, she simply didn’t deserve the torture.
    She was aware of her fingers loosening, releasing the blankets beneath her and moving to her lower stomach. Aware of it, but helpless to stop it.
    She had to get up in less than an hour, dress, and fix breakfast for a dozen guests who took the “breakfast” part of “bed-and-breakfast” very damned seriously. And that didn’t count the occasional friend of her mother’s who stopped by. When she entered the kitchen there could be more orders waiting than the ones Piper and her mother collected from the guests’ doors each morning.
    Mercedes Mackay didn’t run the typical bed-and-breakfast. Along with the regular breakfast fare, guests could choose how their eggs were prepared or if they wanted no eggs at all. They could request toast over biscuits, grits over gravy. Each plate was prepared individually and brought out rather than all the food laid out on the table or a buffet set up.
    Breathing out roughly, she let her fingers push beneath the thin camisole top she wore. Her other hand pushed beneath her shorts.
    Her nipples were swollen tight, so sensitive she had to bite her lip to hold back a moan as she gripped one between her thumb and the side of her forefinger.