Shameless (The Contemporary Collection) by Jennifer Blake Read Free Book Online

bewitching, he suspected, much as she was now, but more so. He liked the shape of her mouth, generous, made for smiling, and he thought he could spend quite a while getting used to the way her brows arched. Her witch's eyes with their layers of blue and green, gold and gray, fascinated him; he would like to move in nose to nose, to study them. Her cheeks were a little hollow, and there were shadows under her eyes; she could use a few more pounds and a lot more sleep. Still, she was beautiful, no doubt about it. Pregnancy could only add to it.
    He put down an extremely well-peeled carrot and picked up another one before he spoke in an abrupt change of subject. “I meant to tell you before, I'll check out your car tomorrow and put new tires on it. Will you be home if I bring it by around nine?”
    “There's no need,” she said with a startled glance. “I can send a man from the garage.”
    “I'd rather see to it; Keith may have left you another little surprise.”
    Her movements stilled and doubt invaded her eyes. “More damage? You don't really think so?”
    Did he? He wasn't sure, but it made a nice excuse. He said, “I can tell more about it when daylight comes. In the meantime, I can leave the Jeep here, in case there's somewhere you need to be in the morning.”
    “How would you get home?”
    “Walk,” he said with a shrug. “It isn't far through the woods.”
    The microwave oven chimed as its cycle ended. There was a silence as she moved to take the steaks out and tear open their plastic wrapping. She turned them out onto a platter, found Worcestershire sauce and set it out, then reached for a pottery garlic jar. Holding a garlic bulb in her fingers, she said, “There's another solution.”
    He looked up, alerted by a shading of strain in her voice. “Such as?”
    “You could spend the night here.”
    He put down carrot and peeler and stood with his arms braced and his hands spread flat on the countertop. The tile was cool under his palms, but did nothing to ward off the sudden furnace heat in his brain. As he turned his head slowly to look at her, it felt as if every bone in his neck grated and snapped with the tension that gripped him.
    “Do what?” he asked in toneless disbelief.
    She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “You heard me.”
    He had. That was the trouble.
    Outside, the rain had begun to pour down again in a steady drumming. He counted his pounding pulse, which made a counterpoint to the soft noise.
    “In one of the spare bedrooms, of course,” she said hurriedly.
    He looked away from her, fastening his gaze on his own pale face reflected in the window over the sink with the dark night behind it. His voice like cracking ice, he said, “I can't.”
    “Why? It's only one night, not a lifetime commitment. There's no obligation involved.”
    “I realize that.” At least he had assumed it.
    “So where's the problem? Unless — I see.” She turned her back on him.
    “I doubt it,” he said, the words measured, louder than he intended, though he couldn't help that. “I don't give a damn about being used — there's nothing unusual in that. It would give me great satisfaction to act as a buffer between you and Keith, if that's what you need. I don't care what the gossipy neighbors think, as long as you don't. And I have no need to deny what you ask out of some misplaced retaliation for the bad blood between our families.”
    “What is it then? Do you walk in your sleep? Or are you afraid I'll be consumed with lust in the middle of the night and crawl into bed with you?”
    A short, hard laugh left him. “That's the least of my worries.”
    “Well?” She turned back to stare at him.
    “Suppose,” he said, switching his gaze to her reflection there beside his own in the rain-speckled glass, “that I hurt you?”
    “You wouldn't. You couldn't.”
    The look on her face was so certain. She didn't understand, even after what he had told her.
    He moved almost before the