Burning Up by authors_sort

Author:authors_sort [Knight, Angela & Singh, Nalini & Kantra, Virginia & Brook, Meljean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: english eBooks
ISBN: 9780425235959
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 2010-08-02T22:00:00+00:00

THREE

Jack stared down at the pretty bare foot in his hands. Soft, pale skin. High, smooth arch.

Webbed toes.

They didn’t even look human. The connecting skin shimmered like fish scales, delicate as insect wings.

His stomach cramped. He looked up into Morwenna’s eyes, bright and opaque as the eyes of an animal. A primitive chill chased up his spine and lifted the hair at the back of his neck.

“What is this?” he asked quietly.

She snatched back her foot, curling it under the legs of the chair. “What does it look like?” she asked defensively.

He couldn’t say. He could hardly think. Stories from his schoolboy days—Poseidon and the Nereids, Ulysses and the Sirens—raced through his head, mixed up with memories of Morwenna singing at the water’s edge, her silver hair shining like seafoam in the sun.

Ridiculous.

He took a deep, steadying breath.

“Not like anything I’ve seen before,” he said carefully. Or anything he believed in. “I was hoping you could explain.”

She pursed her lips. “Must everything have an explanation?”

“In my experience, yes.”

She stood, shaking her skirts down over her ankles. “Then you explain it.”

“Morwenna, your toes are . . .” A gentleman did not discuss a lady’s feet. But he had held hers in his hand, and her toes were . . .

Webbed. Shining with rainbow color like a soap bubble.

“Different,” she supplied.

He seized on the word gratefully. “Different. Yes.”

“And anything different must therefore be flawed.”

He straightened warily. She was offended. Hurt? “I did not say flawed.”

“Am I suddenly repugnant to you now?”

“No.”

Her chin tilted at a militant angle. “But you wish to leave anyway. Because of my different feet.”

He shook his head in baffled admiration. Like a practiced swordsman, she had reversed their positions, driving him on the defensive. “Of course not.”

“Then what do my toes matter?”

He could deal with her anger. But the emotion glistening in her eyes caused a quick clutch in his chest.

“They don’t.”

“Ah.” She held his gaze for a long moment, letting his words speak for her.

He knew he was being manipulated. He did not care. She was so beautiful with her flushed cheeks and that sheen in her eyes. Her quick passions had roused his. The memory of their last time together rose like smoke between them, firing his imagination, cutting off all oxygen to his brain. Then she hadn’t faced him from half a room away. Then she had dropped her dress and sat on the mattress, pulling him to stand between her smooth, bare thighs. He wanted it to be then.

He dragged air into his lungs. How could he press her with questions when he could not breathe? He could have her again, he thought. In this room, on that bed, this very afternoon. His shaft hardened. All he had to do was let go of his questions and enjoy the moment.

Accept the moment.

Accept her.

Her challenge thrummed inside him like the beating of his pulse. Is not existence meant to be enjoyed?

Yes. Lust and longing surged together inside him. He wanted this for himself. He owed it to her.

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