Tempered (A Daughters of the People Novel) (Daughters of the People Series) by Lucy Varna Read Free Book Online

stepped through them and dug her keycard out,
rapped on the door before he opened it.
    Hawthorne was
lounging on the sofa, fully dressed, talking to Lali on her cell phone.
    The door swung
shut behind him and their eyes met across the room. She ended the call and
dropped the phone on the coffee table, and then she was on him, wrapping
herself around him and claiming his mouth in a passionate kiss that stole his
breath and sent heat skittering through him, all cockeyed and nimble. Their
hands fumbled, sending their clothes flying as they were yanked off and
discarded. When they were nude, he lifted her up and pressed her back against
the door, and slid into her with a relief quickly overwhelmed by need. He took
her hard, urged on by her nails digging into his skin and the breathless gasps
she made with each thrust of his hips. He never wanted it to end, never wanted
to leave her tight, wet heat.
    She tangled a
hand in his hair and arched her back. “Harder,” she whispered against his
throat. He flexed into her, lifting her up, up, up. She groaned and her body
jerked and she came, spasming around him, pushing him over the edge into a
release that went on and on and on.
    He touched his
forehead to hers and tried to catch his breath and the happiness zinging
through him on the tail end of passion’s ebbing beauty. Happiness, so much. Too
much for how long he’d known her. He reined it in, tried to, but it lingered
and waxed and filled him from stem to stern.
    Later, he
persuaded her to pose for him and drew her nude body illuminated in the soft
glow of the bedside lamp with the sheet pulled over her breasts. They talked
while he drew, about her writing and his drawings, and about Lali, who turned
out to be Hawthorne’s granddaughter.
    No matter what
Levi said about Hawthorne’s age, Aaron had a hard time believing her to be old
enough to have children let alone grandchildren or, as she’d claimed Levi was,
a great-grandson. The only reasonable explanation he could muster was that she
was an honorary relative. That accounted for the Nana nickname and the odd,
almost ritualistic farewells, but it didn’t jibe with what he knew of her. When
a woman as literal as Hawthorne told him something, he had a hard time not
taking her at her word.
    He finished her
portrait and turned his sketchpad around to her.
    She blinked up
at him, her huge gray eyes guileless. “This is how you see me?”
    “Yeah.” He
started to put it away. Her hand shot out, startling him into handing it over.
“What?”
    “You must think
me beautiful.”
    “You are
beautiful,” he said softly.
    “Perhaps your
vision is colored by pleasure.” She sat up slowly and took his sketchbook,
laying it on the nightstand. “I shall thank you properly for your time now.”
    “Drawing is its
own reward.” He grinned as she pushed him back onto the bed and straddled him.
“On the other hand, it’s been at least an hour since you had your wicked way
with me.”
    “Sex is not
wicked, Aaron Kesselman,” she chided gently. “Unless you wish it to be.”
    “Oh, yeah. I do,”
he breathed, and lost himself in the wicked feel of her mouth on his.
     

Chapter Four
     
    Aaron met Jason
for brunch the next day. Hawthorne had kept him up late the night before,
talking and building trust , late enough that he’d fallen asleep wrapped
around her, waking only when the sun shone brightly through the cracks between
the drapes. In Atlanta, that was pretty damn late. She’d already been gone,
though she’d left a note inviting him to “use the suite as if it were yours”
and reminding him that she’d be an hour later getting in that night if he
wanted to spend time with her.
    He was of two
minds there. On the one hand, he enjoyed being with her. For the sex, yes, God
yes , but also for her company. She was easy to be with and, for the most
part, open and tolerant. For the first time in his life, he felt like he could
be himself with a woman. While she never