SeductiveIntent by Angela Claire Read Free Book Online

kissed her.
    Boy. This guy was good. Was it that he sensed exactly what a
woman needed and acted accordingly? Because she’d seen him act greedily, almost
roughly. Seen it with her own eyes. Hard to believe that woman had excited him
more than she did, but she supposed it was possible. She knew breasts weren’t
every guy’s thing. She just hadn’t met one for whom that happened to be the
case.
    Then she pulled away slightly to look into Brendan’s usually
sunny blue eyes. They were almost black, the pupils were so large. He was
excited all right. He was just holding back.
    Time to come out and play, Mr. Beckett.
    Men were visual creatures. So Sophia reached up to the back
of her neck and slowly untied the top to her halter dress. Years of practice
had her automatically arching her shoulders back to counteract the loss of the
support from the dress. Real breasts succumbed to gravity, slight in her youth
she knew, but it would be more pronounced as she aged. Even as she had the thought,
she saw in his expression what she always saw when men saw her topless for the
first time. And it wasn’t any concern with gravity.
    For just a second, the expression was there. Greed. Want.
And then it was gone. As if he’d pulled it back, and his usual affable
expression was back in place with his eyes firmly on her face rather than her
breasts. “You really are a tease,” he murmured, taking an audible deep breath,
his fingertips tracing her collarbone now.
    “I’m not teasing you, Brendan.” His restraint, oddly, was
egging her on. Usually, she just had to flash a guy and he was all over her.
“I’m undressing. I’m right here. You can touch me, if you want.”
    “What do you want?”
    “What?”
    “I didn’t hear you say you wanted me to touch you.”
    Now that was annoying. “Do women usually beg for your touch?
What—”
    She reminded herself of the game immediately. She wasn’t
here to rail at his incredible conceit. As much as she wanted to. What she and
Arthur had in mind was a little making out and then a little stopping to slow
them down, during which time she’d casually stroll around the room to see if
she could tell if there was a safe anywhere. Maybe even ask him to go get her a
drink so she could search the room more thoroughly. Arthur meanwhile would
check out the more obvious places, like the library.
    But first she had to get Beckett to the making-out part, to
unsettle him a little. Distract him. So automatically she amended, “Of course I
want you to touch me, Brendan.”
    He laughed. “That wasn’t what you were going to say. What
you were going to say is probably something about me being full of myself.”
    “Probably,” she snapped.
    “So your invitation to touch you doesn’t seem that sincere.”
    She forgot to arch her back, to put her best asset forward.
Instead, she put her hands on her hips like a fishwife, or maybe a half-naked
reality TV star. “What do I have to do? Get down on my knees?”
    “That’d be nice. But first, don’t you think we should get to
know each other?”
    Before she could snap back at him, he pushed her to lie back
on the bed and bent his head. Oh. Wow. He kissed the side of one of her
breasts, lightly, and then made his way up to the nipple, lapping at it with
his tongue in some way that turned her on so much she could not believe it. She
must have made some sound because he raised his head, smiling. “Do you like
that, Sophia?”
    She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
    “Why do you seem so surprised then?”
    He held her gaze when all she wanted was for him to bend his
head again to her breast. “Tell me,” he urged.
    “Tell you what?”
    “Why you seem surprised that you like it when I kiss your
breast.”
    “I didn’t say I was surprised.”
    “You didn’t have to.”
    “Fine. All right. Usually men grab me or bite me.”
    He laughed softly. “Well, I have to admit, that can be fun
sometimes but you have to work up to it. And the working up