STORM: A Standalone Romance by Glenna Sinclair Read Free Book Online

his sudden closeness…but Simon did nothing untoward, only propped his arm on the cushion beside one of her legs. She wished she didn't feel the warmth of his proximity so acutely—maybe it was only due to the fact that he had been standing so close to the fire.
                  "It's interesting," he said finally. "To have an outsider's perspective on things. You are right in presuming that these are not things anyone on the staff would feel comfortable telling me. It is a lot for me to process."
                  "Feel free to forget everything I just said," Cara mentioned. She hated herself the next instant for trying to retract her statements, but she was afraid she had overstepped. "I mean it. It's just…" She struggled silently for the words. She hadn't been expecting such a ponderous reaction from the man—then again, Simon always reacted in a way that she wasn't expecting. "I…I don't know why I felt like telling you. It's none of my business. You're just…" She sighed gustily. "I felt like you deserved to know. Because I think you are a good person. At the end of the day, you've been nothing but compassionate toward my situation—even if you do drive me a little bit crazy. I'd even go so far as to say I might miss you when I'm gone."
                  She let her eyes fall to him, and saw that he was looking up at her from his position on the floor. The hand beside her leg moved, and she felt the touch of his fingers alight on her thigh, gently. The mansion was kept warm, and she had left her room earlier in a skirt and stockings—maybe it had been her intention to make him look, a little, at the tight young body he had abandoned back in the pool.
                  "Miss me?" he repeated. "I doubt it. You'll forget all about me once you're back out there in the world. I'd prefer it if you did, actually."
                  "You're lying." The ghost of a smile turned up one side of Cara's face, but it was hard to maintain amusement at his claims with his hand moving up toward the high hem of her skirt. She didn't sense any lascivious intention behind the man's touch—it was almost absentminded on his part, as if his hand sought the comfort of a physical connection without his full awareness. The drag of his fingertips across her bare skin set her heart fluttering faster, and all of a sudden she wanted it again—the press of his fingers in her most secret spaces, the feeling of him stroking her deep inside. One hit and she was already addicted to the rush he could give her, the feeling of forbidden pleasure stolen in a heated moment.
                  "I am," he admitted. "I don't want you to forget me so easily. That's why I—" He appeared to notice the ascent of his hand then, but he didn't withdraw it. After a moment's quiet consideration, he allowed it to trespass beneath the girl's skirt. Cara, no longer able to contain her reaction to his touch, shuddered at the luxurious feeling. She felt his fingers massage her inner thigh, his thumb stroking measured sweeps across her trembling flesh. Her muscles tensed at the intruder in a last, desperate attempt to resume control of her body's too-eager responsiveness. He was driving her crazy, but she refused to come undone so early and so easily— especially when he was watching her to gauge her response.
                  "That's why I had to touch you," he whispered. "That's why I couldn't help myself in the pool. From the start, you seemed so eager to enter my life and throw it into complete turmoil, that I had to make you feel some of what you had done to me. I've been desperate to claim some part of you ever since you walked through my front gates. I never realized you would be so willing. I thought just being around me infuriated you."
                  "You do infuriate me," Cara panted. The hand was pushing against her harder now, gripping her thigh almost possessively, and