Debra Webb - In His Touch Box Set (Here To Stay, Up Close, Tempting Trace, Basic Instincts) Read Online Free PDF

nodded. He applied the antibiotic cream and carefully positioned the bandage into place. “All done.”
    “Thank you.” Paige shifted to cover herself with the robe.
    Before his brain could issue the command to stop, Nathan had caught the fluffy material in his fingers and slipped it back down. He dropped a light kiss on her shoulder next to the clean, white bandage. “All better now,” he whispered. Desire pooled hot and heavy below his belt.
    Paige whirled to face him, the robe still hanging off one delicate shoulder. He’d have happily traded ten years of his life just to touch that shoulder and allow his hand to slip beneath the fabric and cup her breast.
    Her eyes searched his. He saw the questions. Saw the hesitation before she reached out and touched his tense jaw. Nathan closed his eyes and allowed himself this one small, temporary pleasure. Years of want only she could assuage welled inside him until he felt ready to explode. He shuddered. Pain he couldn’t bear to feel again stiffened his already rigid muscles.
    “Nathan, we need to talk.”
    Her soft voice made his eyes open. He looked at her sweet face. The face he’d dreamed of, been haunted by for as long as he could remember. Reality shot through him like a piercing arrow. She would never be his. She’d only hurt him again. He recoiled from her touch. The anger that always hovered just below the surface erupted. “What do we have to talk about?” he snarled.
    Paige blinked and backed away from him. He ignored the pain that stabbed at his heart when he watched the emotion in her eyes turn to something resembling disappointment.
    “We need to settle this thing between us. The past.” Her voice sounded small and hesitant, “We need to—”
    Nathan snorted in disgust, cutting her off. “I’ve got better things to do.” He turned away and strode out the bathroom door and across the bedroom.
    “Wait! Nathan, I mean it. We need to talk about... things ,” Paige pleaded, right on his heels.
    Nathan whipped around to face her. “What do you want to talk about, Paige? Your father, the big-shot attorney who thinks his money can buy anything?” His rage had reached a dangerous level, but he couldn’t slow its ascent. “Or maybe you want to talk about the way you left and never came back... until...” He swallowed hard, then forced himself to continue. “Or better yet, let’s talk about the way you threw yourself at me after my mother’s funeral. Now there’s a hot topic.”
    “I can’t believe you said that.” Her eyes filled with tears.
    “That night meant a great deal to me even if it meant nothing to you.” Her lips trembled, then tightened.
    Nathan laughed, a rude, grating sound. “Why’d you do it, Paige? Sympathy? Trying to make me feel better because I’d lost the only family I had in this world?” His words contained all the bitterness that had consumed him for far too long. “Or maybe you just wanted to see if you could still have me?”
    Nathan caught her wrist before her palm connected with his jaw. He jerked her close. “I guess you don’t want to talk after all.”
    “I hate you, Nathan Blackrope,” she shouted. Her shoulders shook with the outrage he saw in her eyes. Tears brimmed, ready to fall past her thick lashes.
    “Good. Don’t you ever forget it, either.” Dangerously close to making the monumental mistake of kissing her again and begging her not to hate him, he flung her wrist from his grasp and stormed out of her room.

Chapter Three
    Paige regarded the food that sat before her with complete disinterest. Silas Dutton sat across the table, pretending not to notice her somber mood. Paige stabbed a lettuce leaf and brought the fork to her mouth, but couldn’t bring herself to eat. Nathan’s words still rang in her ears. Don’t you ever forget it, either, he’d said. He wanted her to hate him. Maybe that meant he hated her as well. How could she ever hope to make peace with the man? It seemed an