Affair Of Risk Read Online Free PDF

"There was something between us from the first instant of eye contact. Do you deny it?"
    "There was only a matter of business between us," she protested softly.
    "No. There is more . .. much more. Aren't you curious to stay and find out?"
    "I won't be staying, Case. That's very, very final."
    "I can tell from the tone of your voice," he agreed broodingly. He curled his fingers into the softness of her. "Will you ever be back?"
    "No."
    "Not even to pay off the last half of Donna's debt?"
    "By then she'll be able to do it herself."
    "I see. You really don't approve of me, do you?"
    "My approval hardly matters, Case."
    "So I keep telling myself," he retorted dryly.
    He shifted his weight, pulling her down onto the couch beside him and gathering her back into his arms. For a long moment there were no more words, but his hands began to rove over her, caressing the shape of one thigh, the silk of her dress rustling gently.
    Kendra didn't try to restrict his hand until she felt his palm flatten on her stomach and glide upward to a point just beneath her breasts. Then, at last, she began to listen to the warnings in her mind.
    Unwillingly she began to ease away, a rueful smile shaping her mouth as her lashes fluttered open. She met his heated gaze and started to say something witty and conclusive. But before the clever words could form into a sentence, he put his hand on her breast.
    "Case!"
    His name was a reflexive little cry compounded of protest and the need he had stirred in her. She knew she was trembling again, and when his fingers sought the nipple through the silk, she wanted to slap his hand aside. But somehow she couldn't do it. Not yet. And he saw the ambivalence in her eyes.
    "You can't deny your own response, my little mystery woman," he said in deep satisfaction as the tip of her breast hardened beneath his touch.
    "Please don't touch me like that," Kendra said huskily.
    "Will you touch me?" he countered whimsically, taking his hand away from her soft curves and lifting her fingertips to the side of his cheek. When she touched him, he turned his mouth against the skin of her palm and kissed her with a passion that seemed all the more intense for being so well leashed.
    Kendra breathed in the musky, intoxicating scent of his vibrant maleness and took a firm grip on her senses. Her fantasy night had gone far enough. It was time to escape to reality.
    "I want to leave now, Case," she said very quietly, very resolutely. "May I please have Donna's receipt?"
    He dropped another lingering caress against her wrist, and then slowly lowered her hand. "You're really going?"
    "Yes."
    He stared at her for another long second, and she could feel the will in him growing. He was deliberately exerting it, she realized, trying to make her change her mind. But that, as she had told him, was impossible. Half smiling, she shook her head in silent response.
    The bizarre interlude had held a temptation she would never have expected to encounter, but it was time to end it. She had no intention of getting involved with-this strange, enigmatic man whose world was so far removed from her own.
    "The receipt?" she prompted gently, certain that she would get it. It may not have been a totally rational certainty, given who and what he undoubtedly was. But after the evening they had just shared, Kendra felt confident she could trust him that much. He'd told her he would let her have it. She'd believed him.
    "Nothing I can say or do will make you reconsider?" he asked slowly.
    Again she shook her head, the faint smile still quirking her lips.
    "The receipt is my only hold on you," he pointed out, stroking the veins of her small wrist with a circling thumb. The small, erotic touch was sending sparks throughout her body.
    "But you won't use it," Kendra stated positively. "You gave me your word I could have it after dinner."
    "Did you enjoy dinner?" he asked with a wry expression.
    "Very much," she said honestly.
    "Very gracious of you," he applauded,