His One Desire Read Online Free PDF

he was
sick of her ‘living like a nun’ and had insisted she go.
    They’d played all kinds of silly high school games that
night, in a rush of nostalgia, maybe, for the life they were leaving behind.
She’d stayed out of most of them, standing in the shadows by the bookcases in
Joe’s living room. But when they’d started truth or dare after finishing spin
the bottle, Luke had looked right at her.
    “Truth or dare?” he’d asked, his voice cold and hard.
    “Truth,” she’d answered, terrified of what he might dare her
do.
    He’d gotten up from the couch and gone over to her. “Why did
you stand me up on prom night?”
    She’d stared at him for about five seconds before turning
and running blindly out of the house.
    Until yesterday afternoon, that had been the last time she’d
seen Luke Tanner.
    She smoothed her hands over the material of her skirt. “I
remember,” she said gruffly. “What about it?”
    “Let’s have a game this weekend for old times’ sake. If
you’ll agree to that, I’ll leave for L.A. on Monday morning. And you’ll never have
to see me again.”
    She sank her teeth into her lower lip as she pondered. Was
this as straightforward as it seemed?
    “How many rounds?” she asked, finally.
    “Two.”
    “If I agree…will you tell the network people it’s not my
fault or Tom’s that you’re not doing the show? And that you still hope to work
with us sometime in the future?”
    “Sure.”
    “But you won’t. I mean, I want the execs to think you might,
but I don’t want to actually work with you.”
    “I get it, Kali.”
    “Then…okay.”
    He slid his hands into his pockets and leaned against the
doorframe. “Truth or dare?”
    “Dare.”
    * * *
    Luke’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. He hadn’t been expecting
that. He’d thought the game would be a way to navigate the tension between
them, to finally get an answer to the question that had eaten at him for ten
years.
    He wasn’t quite sure what to do next, and he could see from
the satisfied gleam in Kali’s eyes that she knew it. He’d come to New York to
mess with her head, and she always seemed to end up messing with his.
    God, she looked fucking incredible tonight. He hadn’t been
expecting that, either. But when she’d opened her door he’d almost passed out.
    She was wearing a floating cloud of nothing much, a delicate
watercolor of a dress that made her skin look like alabaster. He was willing to
bet Tom had picked out her shoes, too, since Kali never wore high heels. Her
legs were bare and shapely and the neckline of that dress ended in a point just
above her belly button, giving him a mouthwatering glimpse of skin that seldom
saw the light of day—the skin on the inside of her perfect breasts, softer than
the softest silk.
    She wore a blue headband in her short hair, holding the
waves away from her face. Her makeup, for once, had been beautifully applied.
Even her glasses seemed like the perfect touch—a visible signifier of the
bookish, hopelessly nerdy personality he’d once fallen in love with.
    Once but never again, he thought with an odd twinge of
panic. He’d come out to the east coast to lay his old ghosts to rest, not to
make the same mistake twice.
    “So what’s my dare?” she asked carelessly, obviously
relishing the fact that he was momentarily at a loss.
    “I’m not sure yet,” he said, keeping his voice as careless
as hers. “I’ll have to think it over.”
    She shrugged. “Well, you can’t take too long. I don’t want
you dragging this out. I’ll give you until midnight tonight.”
    “Fine.”
    “Fine.”
    There was a pause while Luke tried to remember what the hell
he was doing here in the first place.
    “We should probably head down now,” she said after a moment.
“The dinner’s starting at eight.”
    “Right.”
    The quiet elegance of the resort’s private dining room was
the perfect backdrop for Kali tonight, with her sylph-like dress and her
delicate loveliness. He