Harlequin Historical March 2016--Box Set 1 of 2 by Carol Arens

Author:Carol Arens
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781460395295
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2016-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

She understood all too well and that was the peril of it. He was making too much sense, raising too much guilt. In a week this affaire would be over and his dream would be gone, another man’s life ruined because of her. He would trade his world of relative privilege for this if he could.

The very thought conjured dangerous ideas, stirred flickers of hope where there shouldn’t be any. What if she’d met this man under different circumstances? What if there wasn’t a threat to his life? What if there was no ruse? What if they were truly free to pursue this relationship to its natural outcome? Patra rose and began gathering the plates on to a tray, trying to dislodge the growing fantasy. The what if game was far too hazardous to play. She picked up the now-empty wine bottle. ‘Shall I get another when I go in?’

Brennan rose and joined her, his hands taking the tray from her, his voice full of quiet, husky authority, pushing them gently towards the evening’s outcome. ‘Let’s go in together.’

It was a good thing she wasn’t holding the tray without help. She might have dropped it—and yet this was what the entire evening, the entire day had been moving towards. It was what she’d decided she’d wanted. But her body still reacted with an unprecedented amount of excitement. She took a deep breath, trying to get herself under control. She wasn’t a school girl with her first beau. She could do better than this.

She made him wait in a bid to get herself under control. It was legitimate at first. The food needed to be stored and the dishes needed to be soaked at the very least. But Brennan managed to make even the most mundane chores into foreplay with nothing more than his eyes. His gaze followed her, watching her hands rinse the dishes, watching her stretch up to put the dishes in a high cupboard, watching her bend to toss out the dishwater, his gaze letting her know he appreciated each curve, each turn of her body. Dishes had never been so sensual. She reached for a kettle and his hands closed around hers, setting the kettle aside. She was conscious of his body warm behind her, his voice at her ear.

‘Enough. We won’t need anything else tonight. You are stalling, Patra. Shall I go?’ He was making her ask for it, as she’d known he would. He had made the parameters of their association clear from the start: nothing would happen she didn’t choose. He’d enforced those parameters at the beach and now he was enforcing them again. His hands tightened over hers, the only sign of his apprehension that perhaps she might deny them both at the last.

He was right, of course, she was stalling, but not for the reason he thought. The exact opposite, in fact. She summoned the courage to say the words out loud. She turned in his embrace, her arms going about his neck.

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