Forbidden Dreams Read Online Free PDF Page A

determined. He also looked demented. “Carson, cover me, I’m going in!”
    “Take it easy,” Shell said, trying to pin his shoulders. “Jason, don’t fight me, please. Lie down. You have to rest because you’re ill. I’m trying to help you.”
    He groaned long and low and despairingly, looking straight into her eyes with such loathing, she felt chilled. “You? You never helped me,” he said bitterly. “You left me! You turned me in.” He choked, squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then opened them and stared at her. He clamped one hand onto the back of her head, fingers tangling in her hair. “Oh, God, Sharba, why?” he asked. “Why did you go?”
    “Jason, lie down. Please. Try to relax.”
    “Ahh, get the hell out of here,” he said, thrusting her away. “I don’t want you back.”
    “Okay, that’s fine. Just lie down and let me cover you.”
    Abruptly, his look of hatred was gone, replaced by one of pleading, of endless, depthless yearning that closed Shell’s throat with pain. He caught her by the elbows and held her before him, his voice low and grating as he said, “I don’t want you to go. But … how could I ever again trust you to stay with me? Could I ever believe in you again after what you did? You have to understand, Sharba. It can never be the same again for us, so go. Please, by all that’s merciful, get out, before I let the loneliness take over and beg you to come back …”
    His eyes closed. He fell silent, but didn’t let her go. Shell sat very still, waiting for his hands to relax in sleep, but abruptly his eyes popped open again. “Why?” His exhalation was short and abrupt, like a sob. “Please! I wanted you for so long … I waited and waited, and you never came back, so if you leave me now, I’ll …” His voice trailed away as he gazed at her, those coal-black eyes boring into hers, searching for answers that weren’t hers to give.
    He cupped her face then, drew her down to him, and took from her a kiss that also was not hers to give. Her head pressed to his chest, he rested his palm on her cheek. His fingers slid through her hair, tenderly, seductively, as if the feel of it so pleasured him, he couldn’t stop moving his skin against it.
    “Soft,” he murmured against her temple. “So soft, like black satin.”
    His head fell back onto the pillows while he continued to hold her. He stroked her cheek, his fingertips hard, callused, sending shivers of forbidden delight down her throat and chest to gather at and pucker her nipples. Her other cheek lay on the powerful muscles of his chest, and she drew in a long breath of his scent. He smelled clean and masculine, and the sound of his heart pounding steadily in her ear was as soothing as the feel of him, the scent of him, were disturbing.
    With a strength that amazed her, he suddenly lifted her fully onto the bed, rolling up and over her and pinning her to the mattress with his weight. Cupping her face in one hand, he kissed her again, this time demanding a response. Even as she fought not to give it, she succumbed to all the wild sensations that refused her denial.
    As Shell told herself that this was wrong, crazy, that Jason O’Keefe was a stranger who was sick with a fever and out of his mind, her heart told her that she had known him from the beginning of time and that this was as right as anything she had ever experienced.
    The heat of his fever burned her skin, and a different kind of heat grew within her, one that was all hers and building inexorably, glowing hotter and hotter. She tried to drag herself away before she got lost in the sensations of his smooth, hot tongue prodding her lips, before she gave way to the demands of his mouth. But needs she had suppressed for too long arose and weakened her, gave her muscles all the effectiveness of old rubber bands and melted her inner resolve. She slid an arm around his neck, touching his hair with uncertain fingers. Its springy thickness was a delight, and she