Beyond Repair Read Online Free PDF

this second skin?
    Maybe he was something else, inside. Something dark and
twisted, from a fairy tale she only half-remembered.
    “What are you thinking of?”
    She wished he hadn’t whispered that. His whisper was even
better in person than it was in the movies—sort of husky, with a hint of
sensuousness that didn’t really fit this situation. She was just cutting him
out of a damn coat, for God’s sake.
    Why didn’t it seem as if she was just cutting him out of a
coat? She could feel his breath on the side of her face now, as she tried to
negotiate his big, bulky shoulder. And all this heat was coming off him in
long, slow waves, even though he should have been freezing. The outside of the
jacket was freezing.
    Maybe he was developing a fever?
    “I’m thinking that I’m going to find a weird creature under
here.”
    “I promise it’s just me,” he said, but he was lying.
    He absolutely had to be. Holden Stark wouldn’t get as close
as he was currently getting. Something else must have been stirring the strands
of hair that curled against her right cheek, because it couldn’t possibly be
him. If it was that meant he was nearly touching her, and not with something
simple like his fingers.
    He was doing it with his mouth. That lush, ripe mouth of
his, and he was nearly touching her with it. She could tell he was, without
even turning her head. She could make out the near-sulky curl of his lower lip
and the pout of the top one…could almost see them out of the corner of
her eye.
    Plus, he was breathing on her, oh God he was breathing on
her.
    Did he realize he was?
    She doubted he did. He probably exuded such enormous amounts
of raw sex appeal that some of it was always spilling out—even at completely
awful times. In fact, wasn’t this the worst possible time in the world?
He’d just been through a terrible, terrible ordeal and yet all she could feel
was the heat rolling off him and the pressure of his big body. Her hands were
starting to shake. Her face felt red-hot.
    Any second now, and he was going to notice. She had to get
herself together, but how to do it without revealing several embarrassing
facts? She couldn’t say, I’m not used to a man being this close to me — please
go over there . And she definitely couldn’t tell him to stop breathing hot,
humid breath on her. It would sound like a complaint, when really it was
anything but. The whole thing was a bit like being inside a tea-scented sauna
with a lot of naked men—which was nice, in one way. It was very nice, in fact.
    It was just also very hard to escape.
    She swapped sides and started working on his other sleeve,
only to find that this strange pressure had infected everything. It was in his
stare, which looked both amused and oddly defiant, whenever she dared to glance
up at it. And it was in the slow, steady cuts she was making. She couldn’t help
thinking of the word undressing now, as she slid the scissors ever
upward.
    Even though that was insane.
    He still had his t-shirt on, underneath the jacket—as thin
as it was, and as near transparent. She could make out the actual curve of one
pectoral muscle beneath, but she paid no attention to that. She paid attention
to the picture on the front, instead—a smiling octopus, surrounded by a faded
sunset.
    “Almost done,” she said, just to break the silence. It had
gotten very thick in the last few minutes, and the longer she let it go on for
the more it seemed to be building into something else. Something coiled and
ready to crush her. If she didn’t do something quick she was going to wind up
smothered, or at least inadvisably excited.
    She could already feel it starting to blossom between her
legs, in this terrible tingly way. Every time she moved, this sensation
threatened to get more intense, and that just seemed really bad of her. It was
important to cut it off at the pass, but all she could manage was a jittery,
jagged finish to this arts-and-crafts project, followed by a