Straight from the Heart by Tami Hoag Read Free Book Online Page B

thudded as Jace tugged her closer.
    “Kiss me, and then tell me you don’t feel anything, Becca.”
    What choice did she have? If she walked away, he would take it as a sign to go ahead with his pursuit of her. And if she kissed him…she swallowed hard.
    Really, she told herself, there was no reason she shouldn’t be able to do exactly as he instructed. She didn’t want Jace Cooper in her life. This was the perfect opportunity to prove that to him.
    Ignoring the sense of impending doom that weighed down on her chest, Rebecca sank to the bed. Her hip brushed his as she leaned toward him. Jace speared his fingers through her ebony hair and angled her head as he lowered his.
    At the first brush of his lips across hers, she was lost. Sensation swallowed her up. New sensations and memories twined around her like silken ribbons, pulling her away from her cold resolve and binding her to a deeper truth—no man had ever made her feel the way Jace did.
    His mouth was like liquid heat on hers. With lips and tongue he caressed, seduced, coaxed, and demanded. And she responded. Desire breached control like smoke would slide through the bars of a prison cell. She couldn’t hold it back. She couldn’t stop her trembling hands from reaching up to touch the hard planes of his whisker-roughened cheeks, couldn’t stop the soft moan that floated up from the depths of her soul.
    Jace banded one arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer, until she was half-lying across his lap. Her swelling breasts nestled into the hardness of his chest, her hip pressed against the hardness of his manhood. Their bodies greeted each other as if the time apart had bred nothing but hunger inside them. Rebecca suddenly felt as if her body were nothing more than a shell built to encompass the sharp ache of need, a need only Jace could satisfy.
    Tears flooded her eyes as despair washed away all other emotion. How could she still want him? After the way he’d hurt her, after the way he’d simply left, how could she feel this kind of need? After all the nights she’d cried herself to sleep, how could her heart betray her so?
    In one fluid movement, Rebecca broke the kiss, stood up, and started for the door.
    Jace’s heart was pounding. Desire throbbed through his whole body. Desire and surprise. The intensity of the kiss, of the need it had triggered, had knocked him for a loop. True, he had wanted to kiss Rebecca practically from the moment he’d seen her earlier in the day. He had actually fantasized about kissing her when he’d been lying in a hospital bed in Chicago. Renewing a relationship with her had seemed important, but he hadn’t realized until now just how important.
    He was in love with her.
    The idea that she was leaving when he’d just made this monumental discovery didn’t appeal to him in the least. He wanted to get up and go after her, but the pain in his knee prevented him.
    “Becca?” he called, feeling helpless at the knowledge that she wouldn’t come back this time.
    He couldn’t stop her, and a part of him couldn’t blame her. He’d hurt her before, and she probably figured the odds were even he’d do it again.
    The kiss had probably been a mistake, but he couldn’t regret it. It had shaken them both right down to their socks. It had brought to light the fact that what had been between them before hadn’t died. Sooner or later Rebecca was going to have to accept that.
    The sooner the better, he thought as his body geared down from desire to aching frustration.
    “I have to go,” she whispered, not trusting her voice, not trusting herself to turn and face him.
    Mrs. Marquardt passed her in the doorway. “Bye-bye, Rebecca. Say hello to your father for me.” Brandishing a huge red plaid ice bag, she bustled toward Jace. “Just what the doctor ordered, Mr. Cooper.”
             
    She’d never failed a test in her life.
    “You got a big, flaming F on this one, Rebecca,” she muttered under her breath as she