Once More With Feeling Read Online Free PDF Page B

she turned away. “If I had known this was why you wanted to see me, I wouldn’t have let you come. It’s over, Brandon. It’s been over for a long time.”
    â€œIs it?” Raven hadn’t realized he was so close behind her. He turned her in his arms and caught her. “Show me, then,” he demanded. “Just once.”
    The moment his mouth touched hers, she was thrown back in time. It was all there—the heat, the need, the loving. His lips were so soft, so warm; hers parted with only the slightest pressure. She knew how he would taste, how he would smell. Her memory was sharper than she had thought. Nothing was forgotten.
    He tangled his fingers in the thickness of her hair, tilting her head further back as he deepened the kiss. He wanted to luxuriate in her flavor, in her scent, in her soft, yielding response. Her hands were trapped between their bodies, and she curled her fingers into the sweater he wore. The need, the longing, seemed much too fresh to have been dormant for five years. Brand held her close but without urgency. There was a quiet kind of certainty in the way he explored her mouth. Raven responded, giving, accepting, remembering. But when she felt the pleasure drifting toward passion, she resisted. When she struggled, he loosened his hold but didn’t release her. Raven stared up at him with a look he well remembered but had never been able to completely decipher.
    â€œIt doesn’t seem it’s altogether finished after all,” he murmured.
    â€œYou never did play fair, did you?” Raven pushed out of his arms, furious and shaken. “Let me tell you something, Brandon. I won’t fall at your feet this time. You hurt me before, but I don’t bruise so easily now. I have no intention of letting you back into my life.”
    â€œI think you will,” he corrected easily. “But perhaps not in the way you mean.” He paused and caught her hair with his fingers. “I can apologize for kissing you, Raven, if you’d like me to lie.”
    â€œDon’t bother. You’ve always been good at romance. I rather enjoyed it.” She sat down on the sofa and smiled brightly up at him.
    He lifted a brow. It was hardly the response he had expected. He drew out a cigarette and lit it. “You seem to have grown up in my absence.”
    â€œBeing an adult has its advantages,” Raven observed. The kiss had stirred more than she cared to admit, even to herself.
    â€œI always found your naiveté charming.”
    â€œIt’s difficult to remain naive, however charming, in this business.” She leaned back against the cushion, relaxing deliberately. “I’m not wide-eyed and twenty anymore, Brandon.”
    â€œTough and jaded are you, Raven?”
    â€œTough enough,” she returned. “You gave me my first lesson!”
    He took a deep drag on his cigarette, then considered the glowing tip of it. “Maybe I did,” he murmured. “Maybe you needed it.”
    â€œMaybe you’d like me to thank you,” she tossed back, and he looked over at her again.
    â€œPerhaps.” He walked over, then dropped down beside her on the sofa. His laugh was sudden and unexpected. “Good God, Raven, you’ve never had this bloody spring fixed.”
    The tension in her neck fled as she laughed with him. “I like it that way.” She tossed her hair behind her back. “It’s more personal.”
    â€œTo say nothing of uncomfortable.”
    â€œI never sit on that spot,” she told him.
    â€œYou leave it for unsuspecting guests, I imagine.” He shifted away from the defective spring.
    â€œThat’s right. I like people to feel at home.”
    Julie brought in a tea tray and found them sitting companionably on the sofa. Her quick, practiced glance found no tension on Raven’s face. Satisfied, she left them again.
    â€œHow’ve you been, Brandon? Busy, I