Sterling's Reasons by Joey Light Read Free Book Online Page A

ground. He fell halfway across her. Sterling took the solid weight of him and searched for his face in the rain.
    “You’re some crazy lady.” The wet warmth of his body seared her as he lowered his face to hers. His breath whispered across her ear. It felt good, so good, but she wouldn’t let him know it. Gathering some strength, she rolled and pinned him beneath her. Looking down at him, at the surprise on his face, she had to smile.
    “Had enough, tough guy?” she challenged him with a wide grin.
    His hands came up and he molded his fingers to her face. Slowly, he ran his thumbs across her cheeks, her lips. What she saw in his eyes right then might have been the Joe before all this happened. “Not nearly,” he whispered before he pulled her mouth to his.
    His lips were wet and cool, but they soon warmed under hers as they moved from one corner of her mouth to the other. She felt the sand stick to her hands as she traced his shoulders. She could feel the strength there, the solidness. She felt the cold rain rolling down her back, but she had no inclination to move. This sensation, this wandering heat that his body drew from hers, was demanding on its own. His kiss was gentle but unrelenting and she moved her body more in line with his as he slipped his tongue into her mouth.

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    Joey Light
    A need, a desire that Sterling didn’t know she possessed rose to the surface and cried for more. His gentleness was fast turning into urgency, his soft mouth was no longer asking, but taking. And she gave and took and gave some more.
    His hands slipped under her shirt and found her. He rolled then, turning her beneath him. When the rain hit her full in the face again, reality came with it.
    “Joe.”
    He reared his head back and looked at her. Water ran from his face onto hers, but she could see the blatant desire in his eyes, then the steely control that flicked into them. He was on his feet pulling her up behind him. Without a word, he led her back to the cottage, up the stairs, across the deck, and into the living room. He left her standing near the doors and went into the bathroom.
    He returned with two gigantic fluffy towels. He draped one over her shoulders and dropped the other to the floor. He undid the buttons of her shirt and pushed it back toward her shoulders. His eyes never left hers. They were dark and foreboding. She felt a chill from fear, not the cold. He ran his hands over the towel, absorbing water from her body. She wanted to lean into him. She wanted to shove logic from her mind and let her body and her heart rule. But somehow it almost seemed as if he were trying to vent his frustrations on her. It almost felt like he needed to hurt someone the way he’d been hurt, and she couldn’t let it be that way. She dragged air through her lungs and leveled her gaze on his dark and sleepy eyes. She put her hands on his wrists to stop him.
    “Joe, I don’t…I…it’s too fast. We don’t…”
    He stopped. Restraint seemed foreign to him. It seemed to Sterling that he was fighting his own nature. “You do something to me, Sterling. You touch me where I haven’t been touched in a long time, and sometimes I forget that we’re strangers. Go home, lady, and stay there. Next time I might not stop.”
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    Sterling’s Reasons
    She wanted to be in his embrace, didn’t she? She didn’t want to even think of going back to her cottage alone. But if she held him, if she comforted him… Was that what she was doing?
    No. Her body cried out for his, wanted his. What had gone wrong with the reason why she was here? All of a sudden she wanted to call Mr. Ramsburg and tell him that all Joe Timothy MacDaniels needed was Sterling Powell. That was foolish. She redid the buttons as he turned his back to her and looked out across the ocean. The muscles in his back rippled beneath his wet shirt. Wanting to comfort couldn’t be the reason for this.
    Could it be she was