Wild in the Moonlight by Jennifer Greene Read Free Book Online Page B

here-today-gone-tomorrow kind of guy, but that was just so she wouldn’t be afraid of his coming on to her. It wasn’t because he wanted her to think he was nice. Sheesh, how insulting could she get?
    â€œYou want me to drive into town? Is that why you’re upset, because you feel stuck with me under your roof?” he asked. “There’s just no reason to get your liver in an uproar. If I’m a problem for you, I’ll just take off, go find a hotel or motel—”
    â€œOh, don’t be ridiculous,” she said crossly. “You’re not taking off cross-country in the middle of the night in a thunderstorm. I never heard of anything so stupid.”
    Well, hell. Somehow he had to find some way to communicate with her a hell of a lot better than they were doing so far. They hadn’t even started to do serious business, yet he seemed to invoke some kind of strange response from her. She was running on froth and emotional fumes. He needed her straight and coherent.
    So he snagged her arm when she tried to go flying by—God knew where she was sprinting off to this time, but apparently her goal was to find more candles, even though the living room already looked like a witch’s lair. She went stark still the instant his hand closed on her wrist.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” she asked. She didn’t shout it. Or whisper. Only…asked.
    He felt her pulse gallop. Felt the warmth of her skin. Felt her gaze shoot to his face as if compelled by their sudden closeness. “I’m confused what’s going on here. Are you afraid of storms?”
    â€œNo. Heavens. I grew up here. We get blizzards in winter, thunderstorms in summer. Vermonters are sturdy people. Actually, I love the rain.”
    Typical for her, she offered a lot of talk but very little information. “So it’s just me, then? I’m doing something to make you nervous?”
    â€œI’m not nervous. I’m always goofy,” she assured him. “Ask anyone.”
    He struggled not to laugh. If he’d laughed, of course, she would have diverted him from the problem. Which made him wonder if that was why she came across so scatterbrained—because it was such an effective defense for her. “I don’t want to ask ‘anyone.’ You’re right here, I’m asking you. If you want me out of here, I’ll leave. Just say the word.”
    She still hadn’t seemed to breathe, although his hand had immediately dropped from her wrist. “You’re staying. As long as you don’t mind staying with a batty woman.”
    â€œYou’re not batty.”
    â€œYou don’t know me. I know me. And if I say I’m batty, I should know.”
    God. It was like trying to reason with a cottonpuff. Only she wasn’t a cotton puff. In all that flickering candlelight her hair was drying, looking like silky silver. The pulse in her throat was beating hard. Her skin, her mouth, defined softness. And her eyes…she was still meeting his eyes. There was nothing goofy there, just the awareness between a man and a woman that carried enough heat to melt the Arctic.
    He had no intention of kissing her. Maybe she was just figuring out the chemistry, but he’d known it since he first laid eyes on her. There was no explaining what drew a man and woman together—particularly when the two people were as contrarily opposite as they seemed to be—but Cameron didn’t sweat problems he couldn’t solve. When there was heat, there was heat. You didn’t lie about it. You didn’t pretend. You just faced the truth, whatever it was.
    And the truth was, he didn’t care if there was a combustible furnace of chemistry between them, he wasn’t going to kiss her.
    Yet suddenly he was.
    He wanted to blame it on the moonlight…only there was none. In the dark candlelit room, with the growl of thunder and hiss of rain just outside, there seemed nothing