Here Comes the Bride Read Online Free PDF

skin and make her beg for more, she thought, letting her wanton imagination stray too far.
    “It’s fine,” she said, then absently fingered a small bud vase on the table that held an orange desert flower. She didn’t know if the flower had a fragrance to it or if it was the sweet night air around her mingled with the exciting scent of the man she was with.
    She swallowed hard and tipped her glass to her lips for another taste of temptation.
    He studied her carefully across the table. “Strange,” he said, his voice wickedly low and raspy. “I never expected to find us allies of sorts.”
    “I feel we’re more like … coconspirators.”
    One corner of his very desirable mouthquirked up at that. “Whatever we are, I’m enjoying the alliance.” He reached for her hand, the tips of his fingers making dangerous little circles against her palm. “Very much.”
    Fiona knew she should pull away. While she still could.
    He was mesmerizing, his touch incendiary. She’d never met a man who could affect her so quickly, so overwhelmingly. She felt out of control. And control, she suspected, was something a woman could relinquish completely with Nick.
    “Shouldn’t we be discussing battle plans?” she asked, retrieving her hand from his.
    “Mmmm. Yes, battle plans.” He leaned back in his chair, relaxed, maddeningly devil-may-care. “Why don’t I pick you up tomorrow … say around eleven and we’ll, uh, plan maneuvers.”
    She wasn’t at all sure she could trust this man’s maneuvers. She could end up being the one under siege. She’d trusted another man once—Adam. Nearly marrying him. She didn’t want to be a fool again.
    “I suppose the sooner we come up with something, the sooner I can get back to Boston …”
    He leaned forward across the table. “What waits for you back in Boston?” he asked. And who? he wanted to add, but refrained.
    “My shop. When my father called meabout the wedding I only had time to stick a CLOSED sign in the front window.”
    “What kind of shop do you have?” He hoped what they said about curiosity was only true of cats.
    “I sell antiques. Anything old and abandoned—from furniture, which I restore myself, to vintage jewelry.”
    When Nick thought of antiques he pictured rocking chairs and old bottles. But he suspected he’d find neither in her shop. Her eyes glowed just talking about it. He wondered if she knew that.
    “And is this something from your shop?” he asked, feeling an overwhelming desire to touch the tiny emerald, set in a delicate old mounting, that hung around her neck. As his fingers touched the gem, nestling in the hollow of her throat, he saw her eyes flame with a brilliance that outdid the shimmering green of the stone.
    Had it been a reaction to his touch?
    Why did he fervently hope so?
    Her fingers closed over his around the stone. Her voice was barely a whisper. “It was a piece from an estate sale. I couldn’t bring myself to sell it.”
    “It suits you.”
    The fiery color belonged to her, and so did the unusualness of the mounting. Fiona Ameswas as temptingly beautiful as the gem she wore.
    He leaned closer, his hand still at her throat, intending only to brush his lips across the sweetness of hers. Once, only once. But she proved more of a threat than he thought. He wanted to savor and taste. He wanted to explore the nectar he found.
    Gently, insistently, his tongue teased at her mouth, begging her lips to part and admit him, and when they did, softly, wantonly, he felt a sweet ache low in his body.
    The touch of his kiss felt dangerous, Fiona thought as she leaned in for more of it, of him. He pulled back then, but only to trace her lower lip, outlining its fullness with the tip of his tongue until she thought she’d go mad.
    His breath whispered across her lips like a caress, hot and inviting, arousing every tiny nerve ending in them. Then his mouth took hers again, more fiercely this time. She forgot time and place as emotions