Seducing Steve by Maggie Wells Read Free Book Online Page A

breaths.
    Neither of them said a word. Sara didn’t think she could wrestle one past her dry throat even if she could conjure up one.
    “Sara?” he called to her, his voice deep and whiskey rough.
    “I’m here.” Her slowing heart skipped a beat. Panic clawed at her throat. She closed her eyes, biting back the urge to beg him to come to her. Sara pulled her hand from her panties and smoothed her rumpled skirt over her knees.
    “Good,” he said at last.
    She blew out a gusty breath. “Lord that was hot.”
    Steve hesitated. “I was taught not to talk to a lady like that.”
    “Maybe I’m not a lady.”
    “You are,” he insisted. “At least a Dame.”
    Glad to be back on more familiar turf, she played along. “Like Judy Dench?”
    “But hotter. Classy like Judy, but sexy like Sharon.”
    “I might be getting a little worried about your Sharon Stone obsession.”
    “Don’t worry about it. One night I’ll run across Catwoman on cable, and Halle will distract me.”
    “Slut.”
    “Me?”
    “You,” she grumbled.
    “I’m just a red-blooded all-American male, sugar.” He jostled the phone a bit. “You got a cat suit?”
    “No.”
    “See? You are a lady.” His voice dropped another full octave. “I like that about you.”
    “Uh-huh?”
    “You’re sexy and sweet, Sara, and you don’t have to work at it.”
    She bit her lip, letting his words seep into her skin. “Thank you.”
    “My pleasure,” he whispered.
    Silence hummed in her ear. He cleared his throat. Sara smiled as she envisioned him roughing his hair with his hand—a nervous habit she found unbearably attractive.
    “Have you ever done, uh, this before? The phone thing?” he asked.
    “No. Have you?” Steve held his tongue for a moment too long, and Sara caught it. “You have?”
    “ I haven’t, no. I mean, I didn’t, um, say things.”
    “Someone said them to you?” When he hesitated, she blurted, “Forget it. I don’t want to know.”
    “Sara,” he cajoled.
    She heard the desperation in his tone, but her humiliation carried the day. Determined to put this debacle of a phone call behind her, she cleared her throat and asked, “You’ll come over tomorrow?”
    “Yes. It wasn’t like this...”
    No. She didn’t want excuses. She couldn’t take his justifications. “As soon as you’re done at work?” It’s not like I thought he was a virgin. I just thought…
    “Yes. It wasn’t like me and you—”
    Maybe I was different from the others… “I’ll make lasagna.”
    Steve sighed heavily. “I’ll bring wine.”
    She sat still, listening to his soft, even breaths as they echoed through the phone.
    “No one is like you, Sara. You know that, right?”
    She bit her lip and drew a deep breath, unwilling to give in to the smile of pure feminine pleasure threatening to break through her pout. She forced her voice to be deliberately light and teasing when she whispered, “Have sweet dreams, Steve.”
    His voice was rich with laughter and smooth as molasses as he replied, “Darlin’, I think we both know they’re gonna be.”

Chapter Six

    Steve throttled the neck of an innocent bottle of Merlot as he climbed the steps to Sara’s apartment. He balled his hand into a fist to keep from peeling his suit coat from his shoulders. He wanted to sling the jacket over his shoulder in hopes that Sara would fall to her knees and act out the scene she described in such vivid detail the night before.
    Too obvious. Too desperate. Cool, play it cool. Do not jump her the minute she opens the door. Let her take the lead.
    The days that passed since their first encounter allowed him to catch up on his required reading. He plowed through each of her books, searching for snippets of himself in her characters and coming up empty. Still, it wasn’t a complete loss. Buried deep in his desk drawer was an old electric bill envelope covered in notes. Over the last two days, he made diligent lists of things her heroines seemed to like and,