Lake of Dreams Read Online Free PDF

clean sweat, and male muskiness. He had pulled her against his left side, leaving his right arm free, and she could feel the reassuring steadiness of his heartbeat thudding within the strong wall of his chest.
    She was abruptly, acutely aware of her nakedness beneath the nightgown. Her breasts throbbed where they pressed against his side, and her thighs began trembling. My God, what was she doing out here, dressed like this? What had happened to her much-vaunted common sense? Since the dreams had begun, she didn’t seem to have any sense at all. No way should she be this close to a man she’d just met the day before. She knew she should pull away from him, but from the moment he’d touched her she had felt an odd sense of intimacy, of rightness, as if she had merely returned to a place she’d been many times before.
    His free hand threaded through her damp curls. “Thea?” he prompted, some of the alertness relaxing from his muscles. “Did something scare you?”
    She cleared her throat and fought off a wave of dizziness. His hand in her hair felt so familiar, as if . . . She jerked her wayward thoughts from that impossible path. “The water,” she finally said, her voice still tight with fear. “I—I’m afraid of the water, and I just noticed how close I was to the bank.”
    â€œAh,” he said in a slow sound of realization. “That’s understandable. But how were you going to see the turtles if you’re afraid of the water?”
    Dismayed, she looked up at him. “I didn’t think about that.” How could she tell him that her fear of the water was so recent that she wasn’t used to thinking in terms of what she could or couldn’t do based on the proximity of water. Her attention splintered again, caught by the angle of his jaw when viewed from below. It was a very strong jaw, she noticed, with a stubborn chin. He had a fairly heavy beard; despite the evident fact that he had just shaved, she could see the dark whiskers that would give him a heavy five-o’clock shadow. Again that nagging sense of familiarity touched her, and she wanted to put her hand to his face. She wondered if he was always considerate enough to shave before making love, and had a sudden powerful image of that stubbled chin being gently rubbed against the curve of her breast.
    She gave a startled jerk, a small motion that he controlled almost before it began, his arm tightening around her and pulling her even more solidly against him. “The turtles are just over here, about fifty feet,” he murmured, bending his head down so that his jaw just brushed her curls. “Could you look at them if I stay between you and the lake, and hold you so you know you won’t fall in?”
    Oh, he was good. She noticed it in a peripheral kind of way. Whenever he did something she might find alarming—something that should alarm her, like take her in his arms—he immediately distracted her with a diverting comment. She saw the ploy, but . . . baby turtles were so cute. She thought about his proposition. It was probably a dangerous illusion, but she felt safe in his arms, warmed by his heat and wrapped up in all that muscled power. Desire began in that moment, a delicate, delicious unfurling deep inside her . . . or maybe it had begun before, at his first touch, and had just now grown strong enough for her to recognize it. Why else had she thought about the roughness of his chin against her body? She knew she should go back inside. She had already made the logical decision that she had no time for even lightweight romance. But logic had nothing to do with the wild mixture of reactions she had felt since first seeing this man, fear, panic, compulsion, and desire all swirling together so she never knew from one minute to the next how she was going to react. She didn’t like it, didn’t like anything about it. She wanted