Promises Keep (The Promise Series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

anything beyond wanting to free it from between her soft pussy lips, and replace it with his fingers. He crossed the distance between them with two strides. He tipped his head and caught a whiff of her flesh. She smelled sweet and clean, when he’d been expecting something exotic and spicy. She smelled of innocence. And cinnamon.
    The discrepancy between what he expected and what his senses were telling him tugged at his suspicions. He frowned and studied her closer.
    The woman frowned back. Her foot caught on the uneven floor. She stumbled into his chest. He grabbed her. His hand skimmed her breast on the way to her shoulder. Her soft nipple grazed his wrist. The more he thought on it, the more the spot burned.
    She twisted in his arms. He let her go. She spun away. Her gown floated up, revealing shapely calves and delicate ankles before swinging back down.
    His wrist burned, his groin ached and he was confused as all get out. What the hell was she doing? What was he supposed to be doing? Dammit, he’d had about enough of this.
    “Madame Cecile said you’d let me know what you needed—”
    She stumbled and almost fell. He caught her before she hit the floor. What the hell was she doing? Sliding his hand down to her waist, the heat of her skin seared his palm. She was tiny and petite with fine bones. His hand spanned from her hip halfway up the delicate ladder of her ribs, his thumb a hairsbreadth from the undercurve of her breast.
    He’d never been so acutely aware of a woman before. The scent of her skin. The feel of her flesh through the sheer nightgown, the silken glide of her hair through his fingers as he caught the ends and tugged her head back.
    This was desire, he realized, as her body rested against him. The real thing. Not something manufactured by manipulation of his flesh, but a bone-deep, genuine desire. Like he’d never felt before. Like he’d dreamed. Like Doc and Dorothy spun fairy tales about.
    When the woman finally responded to his demand and tilted her face to him, his breath caught in his throat.
    Her face was all gentle angles, blended with smooth skin, and touched with a hint of rose. Her lips were full, the upper one plumper than the bottom. Her nose was small and straight, her chin pointed beneath her high cheekbones. But it was those eyes that captured his attention. Wide-set and tilted at the corners, they screamed seduction.
    And innocence. In one of the most disreputable cathouses in the territory. The woman was one hell of an actress.
    Actress or not, he wanted to taste those lips. He turned her chest into his. His bigger body easily absorbed her weight as she followed his lead. As he bent toward her, she shook her head.
    He frowned, not sure whether she was negating speech or his hold. He shifted his grip, but all she did was shake her head again and jerk her chin in the direction of the bed. She had to do it twice more before it finally sunk into his thick skull that she wanted the comfort of the mattress.
    “Sorry.” No doubt she’d taken him for a saddle bum fresh off the trail. She had to if she thought he meant to take her right there in the middle of the room. He let her go long enough to drop his gun belt and knife sheath on the chair beside his shirt. He left the knife in the top of his right moccasin.
    She took a step back. The motion took her into the pool of light and sent her hair swinging about her face. She had beautiful brown hair, sun-streaked and reflecting the reds and golds of autumn. His fingers itched to skim through its length on the way to her face, a face so daintily formed as to appear ethereal. There was something about her face with its wide-spaced eyes that appealed to him. A fragility that brought to the fore all his protective instincts while inspiring wild images of lust.
    He sucked in a long, slow breath as the miracle continued below his belt. He prayed for it to keep on happening and focused on the “something” in those flashing cinnamon colored