Delilah's Weakness Read Online Free PDF

enough to figure a way out of it.
    Calm, reasoning analysis of the situation—that was what she needed.
    Obviously, he’s asleep and doesn’t know what he’s doing.
    He’s mistaken me for someone else.
    She rather doubted that a man who looked as he did was accustomed to waking up alone. He could even be married.
    All right. So far, so good.
    But the question was, could she get loose without waking him up? She moved experimentally against the restraining bands of his arms.
    No.
The answer to that was definitely no. His arms tightened, holding her even closer.
    She relaxed, momentarily accepting defeat, and a very strange thing happened. She realized her position wasn’t at all uncomfortable. It was, in fact, extraordinarily enjoyable. There was something insidiously seductive about being surrounded by the vibrant warmth of a male body, the unfamiliar yet wholly pleasant scent of an essentially clean, well–groomed healthy man just waking up in the morning—a musky scent more intoxicating than the most exotic cologne.
    His stubbly chin rasped across her forehead. "Mmm," a low, husky voice murmured. "Your face is cold. Whatcha been doing?"
    Delilah clamped her teeth on her lower lip. She put her hand flat on his chest and managed to lever her head up. "Mr. MacGregor—"
    Chestnut eyes fringed with black stared intently into hers. "I’ve died," Luke said in that gravelly voice, "and gone to heaven."
    She was already only inches away; it didn’t take much for him to close the gap. His hand, already cupped warmly over the back of her head, exerted just a bit more pressure and he brought her mouth to his.
    It wasn’t the usual first kiss between strangers. There was nothing tentative or exploratory about it. He simply kissed her with the casual familiarity and thoroughness of long habit, as if he were accustomed to finding her in his arms at daybreak. And maybe because of that quality of familiarity, or maybe because she was too shocked to resist, for one long, inebriated moment Delilah gave herself up to that kiss.
    And then, like a diver surfacing, she broke free, spitting fury.
    "What the
hell
do you think you’re doing!"
    His eyes laughed at her, wide awake now. "Oh, well. Not heaven, then. That’s okay. I never expected to get there anyway. This’ll do just as well." Before she could scramble off the bed and out of range, he caught her again and rolled her under him, his hands pinning her shoulders to the pillows as his quilt–cocooned body trapped and held her helpless. He gave her a quick, hard kiss, then released her, laughing as she rolled away and lurched drunkenly to her feet.
    "If you ever do that again," she said with a gasp, boiling mad and fighting tears of confusion and rage, "I swear I’ll… I will pull out your stitches!"
    She stalked from the room, trying to pretend nothing out of the ordinary had happened to her. As she slammed cupboard doors, banged pots, measured rolled oats and water—remembering in the nick of time to double the usual amounts—she kept telling herself, as if reciting a mantra:
He was asleep. He didn’t know what he was doing. It meant absolutely nothing.
    But she was left with the lingering essence of both the man and the kiss, more vivid in a way than the real thing. At the time she’d been too surprised, too embarrassed, too angry, to be aware of the assault on her senses. Now she felt the tingle of her skin where his beard had rasped against it, the moisture on her lips from his mouth, no matter how hard she tried to rub it away. And no amount of rubbing could dispose of the tactile memory of his hand on the curve of her skull, his lips, firm and warm, fitting themselves so perfectly over hers, his tongue sliding over her teeth, surprising her so that she opened her mouth to him––
    Her stomach churned audibly, and she pressed her hand against it. Hunger, that’s all it is, she told herself, furiously stirring the bubbling oatmeal, not even thinking about the fact