Secret Nights at Nine Oaks by Amy J. Fetzer Read Free Book Online Page B

still smelling his aftershave on her skin. Did he have to apologize? Twice! Excuse me, it was good, I liked it, but now I’m really sorry I went all Romeo on you?
    She closed her eyes, wanting sleep, wanting him, and she drew her knees up. It did nothing to alleviate the heavy warmth between her thighs. She couldn’t do this again. She couldn’t fall for him and not have it returned. Though she’d like to tell herself that his ignoring her hadn’t mattered, it had. She was pretty honest with herself, she thought, throwing off the covers and leaving the bed. She’d compared every man to Cain and that first kiss. As if searching for someone who’d give her the same untamed feelings, crackling heat and almost desperate hunger.
    A man who’d still want her.
    But no other man had compared.
    She pushed open the balcony doors, stepping out into the night air. Resting her forearms on the railing, she stared out at the river, the moon’s glitter on the water. The fragrance of jasmine and wisteria drifted on the breeze, reminding her of home. She’d grown up in a small town south of Nine Oaks, a dewdrop on back roads where everyone knew who she was and what she’d been up to since grade school. She never got away with anything, she thought with a smile. And oddly, that had made her more mischievous as a kid. She drove her parents crazy, always testing her boundaries, pushing to see what was over the next hill. It was half the reason she went to L.A. when she could have done her writing anywhere.
    But here at Nine Oaks, the boundaries were tight, clearly marked. Cain had made that clear from the start. Yet in one instance, she thought, glancing back at the bed, he’d ripped those boundaries apart. Shredded them.
    The situation made her see that Cain was a trapped man. Phoebe didn’t get to where she was as a writer without doing a lot of people watching and dissecting behaviors. Cain was a surly dragon ensnared in a cave. A beast tormented by something. The memory of his late wife? He must have really loved Lily if her death sent him to this seclusion. But Phoebe had a feeling there was more to it than that. Cain never struck her as a man who did anything he didn’t want, and pain and darkness were in his eyes now. He practically oozed with it.
    Deciding she wouldn’t figure out the mystery tonight, Phoebe turned back into the room, then grabbed a book to read. Sleep wouldn’t come for her, she knew. And right now, she was glad.
    She didn’t want Kreeg invading her dreams again.
    Â 
    Cain sat at his desk, his breakfast tray untouched on the corner. He jotted notes and fielded calls all morning and was starving, but his time was in demand. Working was a good thing since if he had a spare moment, Phoebe leaped into his brain and tormented him.
    He hadn’t managed the latest crisis when someone rapped on the door.
    â€œNot now, Benson.”
    The door opened anyway.
    â€œApparently I wasn’t clear enough.” Not looking up, Cain scribbled notes.
    â€œSince I’m not Benson that doesn’t apply to me, does it?”
    Something inside him went still as glass. “People do have to work for a living.”
    â€œYeah sure, whatever.”
    Finally, he lifted his gaze. He saw the hollowness in her eyes despite how sexy she looked. In curve-hugging cropped jeans and a dainty aqua sleeveless top, she sent the control he’d fought half the night to regain right out the door. “What are you doing in here?”
    â€œWalking, and now sitting down,” she said as she did, then set a mug of coffee and a toasted bagel on his desk. She gestured to the breakfast tray. “You haven’t eaten?”
    â€œObviously not. Phoebe, I’m trying to work.”
    â€œTake a break. You’ve been in here since five-thirty this morning.”
    If she knew that, then she’d been up all night, too, he thought. Had that kiss haunted her as it