Sun-Kissed by Laura Florand Read Free Book Online Page A

their dancing to another part of the floor so she could catch the caterer’s attention—she could just give the tiniest little signal with a pressure of her hand or a subtle leaning of her body, and he would do it. He teased her about her need to lead, but what really happened was that, without losing his control of the dance, he acknowledged her control, too. And it never seemed to lessen his confidence in himself at all.
    That confidence, right now, radiated through every pore of his body and into hers. I know how to handle you.
    Heat spread from his hand, and she couldn’t get it to stop. It just poured out of him, into her.
    She was used to his hand radiating heat, of course, it was one of the things she loved about dancing with him. Loved the firmness of the heat from his hand, the elusive, all-embracing brush of warmth from his whole body moving in such close harmony with hers. But she normally gathered that heat into her belly and held it there. Let it ride snug at the base of her spine. Right now that heat was misbehaving. Slipping out from where his hand rode like an impudent wildfire, snaking arms down toward her thighs and lingering on the way, stretching up toward her breasts. He pulled her in closer for a turn, and their bodies rubbed just before he dipped her, bringing all her weight into dependence of his hard arm. Into this position of utter trust. Of course he won’t let me fall. Her body never even stiffened against the dip, never tried to resist it and stay upright at all.
    She loved that dip. More even than the spin of their bodies close together, or when he twirled her out and brought her in a lovely whirl back in tight against him again. More even than the heat of his hand, or the utter sense of relaxation and aliveness from the perfect way their rhythms matched. She always wanted that dip. That moment, when she was suspended on the weight of his arm wrapped around her, holding her in close to his body while he looked down at her.
    She loved that dip so much, she who could not stand to trust anyone, depend on anyone. And she had never, ever let herself wonder why.
    “How much have you had to drink?” she asked, mostly to throw something challenging into the moment, to throw up walls. But also—how could he be drunk enough to say some of the things he had just said and still dance so well?
    Mack brought their joined hands to his mouth, so that for one shocked instant her hand thought he really had caught that French hand-kissing infection from his sons-in-law, their curious, easy public intimacy and sweetness. And possessiveness, of course. My hand. She belongs to me . Anne had never belonged to anyone that way. Not like something precious the other person wanted to keep.
    But instead of a hand kiss, Mack extended his strong index finger from their clasp and laid it over his lips. Shh. He drew the tip of his finger over his firmly closed lips, as if sealing them together, and smiled at her. That little, amused, smug damn smile he had when he was beating his opponents.
    And her knuckles, the back of her hand, brushed elusively against his jaw and the edge of his mouth, but never really touched his lips at all.
    He lowered their hands. But not his gaze. Those blue eyes just held hers. Watched her as he turned them, as he danced them around the floor, neatly negotiating the other couples without ever brushing against them and without ever looking away from her.
    I promised not to talk. But I’m thinking.
    Anne was the one who had to look away. And she hated being the one to look away, the one to lower her gaze from a challenge. She pretended she was checking to make sure the wedding guests were all being taken care of.
    But he kept thinking. It was probably why his hand was so aggressively hot like that, reaching into all these places his hand wasn’t supposed to go. She could feel his thoughts just pushing down between her legs, cupping her breasts, invading her panties, doing things his thoughts