Wild by Lori Foster

Author:Lori Foster
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2010-03-27T04:00:00+00:00

Twelve

Tamara held one of Arkin Devane's slim hands between her own. There were no dimmed lights, no special effects. Music drifted into the room; Luna had turned on the CD player. She assumed Boris Sandor was gone. Which likely meant Zane had left, too, since he'd only been hanging around as a guard dog. She should have been amused by his protectiveness today, but instead, she'd been oddly reassured by it.

She tried to concentrate, to say all the words she knew Arkin expected to hear, but the feeling of unease lingered.

She didn't like Boris Sandor. When he'd looked at her, she felt his concentration like oil, sliding over her skin, clogging her pores. It had filled her with uneasiness. His interest had first been calculated, but had quickly turned red-hot, even intimate. She'd felt his anticipation overtake the dread. Why? What had he been dreading, and why had his emotional state changed? She didn't want to deal with Boris, but he'd said her aunt had sent him.

The level of her awareness had startled her. Zane was the only other man she'd felt like that. Zane was the only man she wanted to feel like that.

"Are you all right?"

She met Arkin's concerned gaze and frowned at herself. He paid good money for his time with her, and here she was, daydreaming. "Yes. I'm sorry."

The worry in his pale blue eyes remained. "If it's about me taking up so much of your time...."

"No, no, that's fine." She smiled, and squeezed his hand. "I gather we have a lot to talk about."

"But you had to turn that other man away."

Her smile slipped the tiniest bit. "That's okay. I'm sure Luna took care of him. Now, let me see here."

She stared at Arkin's palm, already knowing what she would see, and what he wanted to hear. At the last second though, before she started her discourse on heart lines and hand coloring and finger zones, she looked into his face. It took her only a moment to make up her mind.

Today, Arkin needed the genuine article, and she intended to give it to him.

Tamara squeezed his fingers, then laid his hand aside. "You're obviously in love."

Arkin's eyebrows lifted. He nodded, eager and wary and hopeful. "Very much so."

"The thing is," she told him with a grin, "she's very interested in you, too."

Drawing back, he asked, "How can you know that?"

"To be honest, Arkin, I'm not sure. But I feel it, and," she added gently, "I could feel it only from you." Tamara regarded him. "You realize the truth, you're just too afraid to do anything about it."

Covering his face with his hands, Arkin groaned. "It's true. I'm afraid of messing up, of doing or saying the wrong thing. She's not like me, Tamara. She's...."

Her heart melting for this gentle man, Tamara suggested, "Exuberant? Alive and outgoing and free-spirited?"

With a sigh in his voice, he said, "She reminds me of you."

Tamara laughed at that. "You're an attractive man, Arkin. You're kind and responsible."

"And dull as dust.

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