Lauri Robinson Read Online Free PDF

breasts heaving.
    He slid his hands down to run his thumbs over the peaks, rubbing the hard nubs beneath the material. “It had to have been spiked,” he declared. Something had to be making him this barmy.
    He took her mouth in another frenzy of tasting, kissing. Control had never challenged him as it did now, and he picked her up, planted her bottom on the table. There he kissed her, over and over, while his hands explored her sides, her breasts. She hooked her heels behind his knees, and it was almost more than he could take. Overcome with need, he undid the buttons of her dress, untied her camisole and pushed the material aside. The lamplight bounced off her milky-white breasts, the darker skin of her nipples, and Garret groaned as his desire peaked.
    He tasted one breast and then the other, suckling until his crotch throbbed painfully. He was about to lift her, carry her into the tiny bedroom beyond the kitchen, when some unfathomable ounce of common sense broke through. This was Rory Boyle. The preacher’s daughter.
    His blood turned cold. He had no idea what to say, how to express everything going on inside him. He was a God-fearing man, but he wasn’t a churchgoing one, and he’d be the first to admit he’d done plenty of carousing out east—even before he knew Emily had married Harms.
    He had broken almost all of the commandments—not the ones that were illegal, but that distinction wouldn’t matter to her. She was a preacher’s daughter.
    Rory held her breath, waiting for Garret to say something.
    Silent, he spun around, walked out the door and moments later rode away as if the devil was nipping at his heels.
    Covering her face with both hands, Rory squeezed her eyes shut. If he hadn’t stopped... She drew a burning breath of air. Which didn’t help. The fire inside her, that which Garret had set to flame, might never go out. Her gaze settled on her bedroom door. She wouldn’t have stopped him from joining her in there. Maybe it didn’t matter if Jim told the entire town about her past. It was true. She was as far from a preacher’s daughter as they came. Growing up in a brothel left impressions on a person, and they’d broken loose tonight. Completely. While Garret held her, kissed her, touched her. He’d ignited a bittersweet pain deep in her most private region, and though she wondered at the intensity of it, she had no doubt what would satisfy it.
    Garret McCoy.
    Groaning, for she was in a far worse way than she’d ever been, Rory climbed off the table to make her way into the bedroom.
    * * *
    Garret kept his distance from the house for the next week, making sure Rory was nowhere near when he returned each night. Thinking about her constantly, as he was, had him waking up hard and walking damn near bowlegged.
    “Garret!”
    He stood from where he’d been nailing a new board to the bottom of the corral full of the mustangs he’d herded up that morning and dropped the hammer. Sam never rode fast.
    “It’s your mother!”
    Garret grabbed the reins of his horse and swung into the saddle while running and didn’t let the animal slow until they reached homestead. There he leaped from the saddle and bolted through the front door, running all the way up the curved stairway that led to the second floor.
    Rory stood outside his mother’s door, and that was where he stopped. “What happened?”
    “She was shaking and couldn’t talk,” Rory whispered. “Dr. Richardson arrived the same time I did.” She let out a tiny sob. “I thought she looked pale at church. I should—”
    “Shh,” he said, wrapping both arms around her. Guilt churned in his stomach. He’d noticed his mother had been moving slower than usual this morning, but fearful of facing Rory, he hadn’t offered to drive her to church. “We’ll just wait to hear what Doc has to say. He’s been corresponding with others, trying to figure out how to treat her.”
    Rory went stiff in his arms. “You know she’s been