The Heiress by CATHY GILLEN THACKER Read Free Book Online

her skin heating.
    “No,” he said, tearing his mouth from hers. Afraid of what might happen if he didn’t call a halt to this, and soon, he took her abruptly by the shoulders. Doing his best to keep his eyes from straying lower, to the tempting curves spilling out of her next-to-nothing underclothes, he forced her inside, to the safety of her cabin. “No.”
    The misery pouring out of her faded, ending the possibility that she might just burst into tears and get rid of her pent-up emotions that way. As Daisy locked glances with Jack, hurt flashed in her eyes, then defiance. And unbelievably, Jack knew he was in an even worse quandary than before. He was the protector here, the defender. Not the man who took advantage…of any woman in turmoil.
    “Okay.” Daisy smiled fiendishly and stepped back, reached behind her once again, and successfully unfastened her bra. She whisked it off and let it drop to the floor.
    Jack immediately grew hard as a rock—like never before. He swallowed again, his whole body aching, and pretended he didn’t want to give Daisy what she was asking—no, begging—for. “Cut it out,” he told her grimly.
    “Nope.” Daisy continued to hold his gaze as she tucked her thumbs into the edges of her thong panties, and slid them down, to reveal her downy soft curls.
    Jack tried to appear unaffected by Daisy’s striptease, but it was impossible. She was without a doubt the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her skin glowed with vitality, her breasts high and full and round. Her nipples were as rosy and tempting as ripe raspberries. Her stomach flat and sexy, her mound covered with curls a shade darker than her wavy blond hair.
    Delighting in his perusal, she lifted her arms above her head and stretched. Slowly, deliberately, she pirouetted, giving him ample time to study her tiny waist and curving buttocks, the long slender thighs, firm calves, trim ankles and dimpled knees. Turning all the way back to face him, she smiled again, and reached for a towel on the rack. “I think I’ll go for a swim.”
    Not naked, she wasn’t. The last thing he needed was to have her either arrested—or assaulted—on the beach. And given that even the private beaches such as this were patrolled periodically during the evenings by local law enforcement, Jack moved to block her way. “You can’t do that,” he told her firmly. “Not without a swimsuit.”
    “Sure I can. You can, too.” She sashayed forward,tucked her fingertips in the front of his trousers. “Haven’t you ever skinny-dipped?”
    “Put your clothes on, Daisy. Now,” he ordered gruffly and succinctly.
    “Why?” She batted her eyelashes at him flirtatiously and continued to play the vamp. “Am I bothering you?”
    More than you could ever know.
    “Just go to bed,” Jack continued to suggest with deceptive casualness. And sleep off your hurt and your fury.
    “Sure thing.” Daisy sashayed closer in a drift of orange-blossom perfume. “But only if you join me.”
    His heart thudding at the seductiveness of her smile, Jack asked in a taut, strangled voice, “Why are you doing this?” And why was he even considering giving in to temptation and making her his? Especially when he could see she was nearly as apprehensive as she was eager.
    “I think the real question is, why are you resisting?” Daisy went up on tiptoe, linked both hands around his neck, and like a daring kid playing a game of Truth or Dare, pressed her nude body against the clothed length of his.
    The heat of his desire burned through Jack’s skin. And it was all he could do not to tumble her back on the bed and see how silky wet and sweetly accommodating he could make her. “You know the answer to that.” As much as he wanted to make love to her—here, now—using her that way would hurt her, and Jack did not want her to suffer any more pain. She’d borne enough at the hands of her family.
    Daisy’s Deveraux-blue eyes glimmered with a mixture of relief and