Illegal Motion: A Loveswept Classic Romance Read Online Free PDF

help her deal with and get over whatever the bastard had done to her.
    And that scared the daylights out of him.
    Willa didn’t know what to think. She felt foolish for letting him goad her into that outburst. She eyed him warily, but judging from his expression, his last comment had been completely sincere. For the life of her she didn’t know why, though. Wasn’t this what he wanted? For her to lose control and reveal the truth?
    She’d only been alone with Nick for a few minutes and he’d already irritated her, embarrassed her, made her lose her temper again—and now, amazingly enough, he seemed to be trying to comfort her. “I’m the one who’s sorry,” she said. A tentative smile touched her lips. “You seem to bring out the unprofessional in me.”
    His responding grin created a small glow insideof her. He should smile more often , she thought. Those pearly whites are almost as devastating as his baby blues . If she wasn’t careful she might start to care about him—really care.
    “We’d better concentrate our time on setting up your program. Tell me more about your injury.”
    “You probably won’t believe this,” Nick responded, his smile becoming somewhat sheepish, “but I was out jogging, and I tripped over a dog leash. At the time it was still attached to the dog.”
    His self-deprecating tone and boyish grin were both qualities she wouldn’t have associated with him, and they were completely endearing. “And you twisted your knee when you fell?”
    “Actually, aside from the trauma to an old knee injury, there was also a shoulder separation.”
    She could have sworn his face was actually reddening. Her voice hovering on laughter, she asked, “Your shoulder or the dog’s? And what kind of dog was it anyway, a Great Dane?”
    “Ah, the dog wasn’t hurt.” Nick mumbled something else that Willa couldn’t hear.
    He was blushing! “I’m sorry, what kind of dog did you say it was?”
    “I don’t see what difference it makes, but it was a poodle. A toy poodle.”
    Smiling broadly now, but still struggling to keep from laughing out loud, she said, “I assume then that these injuries weren’t sustained in self-defense.”
    “I’ll have you know,” Nick shot back indignantly, “that the little black-haired rat actually bit me while I was lying there, writhing in pain! I’m flat out on the path, my knee and my shoulder are on fire, and the little bugger bit me right on the—Never mind.”
    Willa sobered immediately. Vivid pictures came to mind of the part of his anatomy most likely to have sustained the bite.
    When Nick raised his eyebrow in her line of vision, she cleared her throat and looked away. The old kiss-it-and-make-it-better remedy had never had such erotic overtones.
    “Willa?” Nick’s quiet tone dragged her gaze up to his eyes. “Will you help me?”
    In that instant she knew. He knows that I know why he’s here . He wasn’t just asking her to help heal his body. He was asking her to heal his soul.
    Willa wasn’t sure if she was willing to risk giving him what he so desperately needed, but in that moment she realized she had to try. Despite their constant sparring matches, which, she had to admit, she found strangely stimulating, shefound it was getting harder to deny her growing attraction to this very determined, very sexy man.
    “I’ll do what I can, Nick.” She had taken the safe way out, not wanting to be the first to broach the real subject at hand. She only hoped he realized the true meaning behind her carefully chosen answer.
    “That’s all I can ask. And I like it when you call me Nick.”
    “Hello, I thought I might find you here.”
    Willa looked up at the man she’d hoped never to see again. Before she could come up with a response, Nick turned to greet his former teammate. She stiffened, her gaze riveted to the look that passed between them.
    “Eric Miller. I haven’t seen you in—oh … almost a year now.” Nick’s smile made it no further