A Man for the Summer Read Online Free PDF Page B

the other hand, she was beginning to realize she very much wanted Griff.
    It was just…if only he hadn’t said that last thing. That “make love to you” thing. There were lots of other words to describe what he proposed. Junior should know—she’d heard them all. Where was an insensitive nasty creep when you needed one?
    “Look,” she said quickly, taking another step back. “I don’t know what Rosie told you—”
    “She didn’t tell me anything.” He took a step toward her, and they kept this dance up for a few steps until Junior gave up. Even when he took her arm again. “I heard you talking. You know…when I was going under.”
    When he was going under! He sure had seemed out, but it happened sometimes. She and Rosie had sat there talking away—Junior frantically thought back, tried to remember the details of the conversation.
    “You heard…”
    “Everything. You know, about…the time you have left.” That look was in his eyes again, the soft warmth. And it wasn’t pity, exactly, but something else. Something dangerously appealing.
    “And what you want. What you need ,” he amended, and leaned toward her again.
    But where the last kiss had been passionate, this one was gentle, almost chaste. He brushed her lips with his, then trailed his kiss along her cheek.
    “I don’t…need anything,” Junior objected, but her voice was shaking.
    Somehow, the fact that he’d heard the problem and come to a decision on his own changed everything. It hadn’t been Rosie. No one had forced him, no one had even pressured him. Griff had come to her entirely on his own.
    He was offering her exactly the one thing she needed, the solution to her problem. Viable sperm. If only she had more time to think.
    This might be her only chance. Junior was pretty sure she wouldn’t have the nerve to find her own donor, at least not the way Rosie had. And here he was, practically gift-wrapped, in front of her. Would she be a fool to let this chance slip through her fingers? What if she never had a baby? Would she hate herself for letting her only opportunity go by?
    Quickly, she deliberated. It couldn’t hurt to get a little more information. Griff was surely healthy looking, but she couldn’t afford to go by appearances.
    “Diseases?” she demanded.
    Griff held up his hands, palms out, and grinned. “Checked out six months ago, and it’s been a dry spell since.”
    “Family history?”
    Griff’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Uh, none that I know of…I’m an only child and my folks, you know, never had, uh, troubles.”
    “IQ?”
    Griff sighed in exasperation.
    “You gotta be kidding. No, I can tell you’re not. Look, I don’t know if a genius is really any better between the sheets than an ordinary Joe, but if it helps, I had a 3.8 at Northwestern.”
    Junior frowned. “I only meant…”
    “Look.” Griff reached for her and without thinking she fell into his arms, allowed him to brush a stray curl away from her face. “I think you might be overanalyzing this a little, honey.”
    “Overanalyzing! Well, for your information it is only the most important decision I’ll ever make—”
    Griff silenced her with a kiss, that intoxicating gentleness somehow sending warmth through her body, slowing her pounding pulse. “Yes, I know. All I meant was, we’ll go slow, and I think I might know just a little more about the subject than you’re giving me credit for.”
    “I seriously doubt that,” Junior whispered. The subject, after all, was babies, and he clearly knew nothing more than the mechanics of conceiving them. This was not a man who could find his way around a diaper bag.
    Which, of course, was irrelevant, Junior reminded herself.
    “You wound me,” Griff accused, faking a pout. Then he kissed her again, and this time he was not quite as gentle. “But I’ll get even tonight.”
    And the flush of excitement, and the images accompanying it, made it very easy for Junior to forget all of her