True Love by Jude Deveraux Read Free Book Online Page A

thinking only about work?” Izzy was incredulous. “Jared Montgomery is over six feet of muscle! He walks into a room and every female in there goes limp. Her forehead lights up with a sign that says TAKE ME. PLEASE . There’s never been a woman who has turned him down, but you … All you can think about is his mind . I didn’t know he had one. Alixandra, you’re getting old.”
    Alix took another long drink, then set her glass on the rug. “You think so? You think I don’t see him as a man? Stay here and I’ll show you something.”
    She ran up the stairs to get her laptop and turned it on so that by the time she got back down to Izzy the screen was on. She had to go through about eight levels of files before the document she’d always hidden came up.
Jared’s Lower Lip
Soft and succulent, luscious and firm
Beguiling, enticing, calling to me
A Siren’s song, Pied Piper’s flute
I dream of it asleep, awake
To touch it, caress it, kiss it
The tip of my tongue, breaths mingling
To draw it in, to caress it
To feel it against my own
Ah, Jared’s lower lip.
    Izzy read it three times before she looked up. “You do think of him as a man. Wow! Do you ever!”
    “It was a few years ago—after we’d heard him speak, and you and I’d spent hours talking about him. Remember how he built his final project for school? No drawings or model for him. He built it with hammer and nails. My dad says that it should be mandatory that one year of architecture school be spent doing construction. He said—” She broke off because Izzy had stood up.
    “Come on. Let’s go.”
    “Go where?”
    “We’re going to look inside his guesthouse.”
    “We can’t do that,” Alix said as she stood up.
    “I saw you looking out the windows, just as I was, and you saw the place in the back. Two stories, big window in front.”
    “We can’t—”
    “This may be our only chance. He’s away on his fishing boat and you know that we came early. He doesn’t know we’re here.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “I don’t know,” Izzy said. “But maybe when he knows a fanatical architecture student is here in this house he’ll put bars on his windows and doors.”
    Alix hadn’t thought of that. “I’ll be subtle. I’ll tell him how much I admire his work and—”
    “And his lower lip? Did you ever consider that he might have a girlfriend? Just because he isn’t married—or wasn’t the last time either of us searched the Internet—and because he was alone on a fishing boat doesn’t mean he’s celibate. Do you think she is going to let you in the house?”
    Alix knew that what Izzy was suggesting was wrong, but on the other hand maybe he had drawings here. Maybe this was her one and only chance to have a private viewing of a Montgomery design before the world saw it.
    Izzy could see that Alix was wavering and she half pushed, half pulled her out the side door and down the garden path to the guesthouse. It was tall and had heavy curtains over the windows; it looked almost forbidding.
    Izzy took a breath and tried the front door. Locked.
    “We can’t do this,” Alix said as she turned back toward the house.
    But Izzy caught her arm and led her around the side.
    “Maybe we can see his bedroom,” she whispered. “Or his closet. Or his—”
    “ How old are you?”
    “Right now I feel about fourteen.”
    Alix took a step back. “I really don’t think we should—” Suddenly, she halted, her eyes wide.
    “What is it?” Izzy gasped. “Please tell me you aren’t seeing a ghost. I read that Nantucket is one of the most haunted places in the world.”
    “It’s a light,” Alix whispered.
    “He left a light on?” Izzy stepped back to look up and she saw what looked to be a desk lamp, the kind that would reach across a drafting table. “You’re right. Do you think he has a home studio? Now do you think we should go in?”
    Alix was already at the window and trying to raise it. It slid up easily. “Andersen