Opposites Attract by Nora Roberts Read Free Book Online Page B

played lady of the manor.”
    â€œYou don’t know anything about it.” Her breath came short and fast. Her eyes were nearly cobalt. “I paid, Starbuck, I paid more than you can imagine. Now I’ve finished, do you understand?” To his surprise, her voice broke on a sob. Quickly she shook her head and fought back tears. “I’ve finished paying for my mistakes.”
    â€œWhat mistakes?” he demanded. Frustrated, he took her by the shoulders. “What mistakes, Asher?”
    â€œYou.” She drew in her breath sharply, as if stepping back from a steep edge. “Oh, God, you.”
    Turning, she fought her way through the swarm of enthusiastic dancers. Even as she sprang out into the sultry night Ty whirled her around. “Let me go!” She struck out blindly, but he grabbed her wrist.
    â€œYou’re not going to walk out on me again.” His voice was dangerously low. “Not ever again.”
    â€œDid it hurt your pride, Ty?” Emotion erupted from her, blazing as it could only from one who constantly denied it. “Did it hurt your ego that a woman could turn her back on you and choose someone else?”
    Pain ripped through him and took over. “I never had your kind of pride, Asher.” He dragged her against him, needing to prove he had some kind of power over her, even if it was only physical. “The kind you wear so that no one can see you’re human. Did you run because I knew you? Because in bed I could make you forget to be the perfect lady?”
    â€œI left because I didn’t want you!” Completely unstrung, she shouted, pounding with her free hand. “I didn’t want—”
    He cut her off with a furious kiss. Their tempers soared with vivid passion. Anger sizzled in two pairs of lips that clung because they were helpless to do otherwise. There was never any choice when they were together. It had been so almost from the first, and the years had changed nothing. She could resist him, resist herself, for only so long. The outcome was inevitable.
    Suddenly greedy, Asher pressed against him. Here was the sound and the speed. Here was the storm. Here was home. His hair was thick and soft between her questing fingers, his body rock-hard against the firmness of hers. His scent was his “off-court” fragrance—something sharp and bracing that she’d always liked.
    The first taste was never enough to satisfy her, so she probed deeper into his mouth, tongue demanding, teeth nipping in the way he himself had taught her. A loud crash of brass from the band rattled the windows behind them. Asher heard only Ty’s moan of desperation. Between the shadows and the moonlight they clung, passion building, old needs merging with new.
    Her breath trembled into the night as he took a crazed journey of her face. His hands slid up until his thumbs hooked gently under her chin. It was a familiar habit, one of his more disarming. Asher whispered his name half in plea, half in acceptance before his mouth found hers again. He drew her into him, slowly, inevitably, while his fingers skimmed along her cheekbones. The more tempestuous the kiss, the more tender his touch. Asher fretted for the strong, sure stroke of his hands on her body.
    Full circle, she thought dizzily. She had come full circle. But if once before in Rome she had been frightened when his kisses had drained and exhilarated her, now she was terrified.
    â€œPlease, Ty.” Asher turned her head until her brow rested on his shoulder. “Please, don’t do this.”
    â€œI didn’t do it alone,” he muttered.
    Slowly she lifted her head. “I know.”
    It was the vulnerability in her eyes that kept him from dragging her back to him. Just as it had been her vulnerability all those years before that had prevented him taking her. He had waited for her to come to him. The same would hold true this time, he realized. Cursing potently under his