Sandra Chastain Read Online Free PDF Page B

McCall?”
    “Making my own investigation, Mrs. Wilder. I may not like being forced into marriage, but I’ll do it if it’s best for my child. But I’m damned well going to have to want the woman. And she’s going to want me too. And right now you’re going to giveme some guarantee that the feeling between us is as strong as I think it is.”
    “I don’t understand.” Her voice was a whisper, barely audible above the wild pounding of her heart and the thundering of her pulse.
    “No, I don’t think you do. But you might as well know, Redhead. I don’t come cheap. I don’t think your detective’s report is quite complete. We both ought to know what we’re paying for.”

Three
    Rusty gasped.
    Cade turned her around, bringing her face into the light, drawing her closer until her breasts skimmed his chest. He could feel the beat of her heart and the unevenness of her breathing.
    The coals in the rock fireplace became prisms of light reflected in the mirrors of her gown and the turbulence of her green eyes. His fingertips stole through her hair—not coarse as its color might have suggested, but soft, fine as silk. It brushed against his hand like hundreds of tiny jolts of electricity.
    With slow caressing motions he trailed her fingertips up her face. He pulled the combs from her hair and watched the long red locks spill across her shoulders.
    Rusty’s response was intense. She recognized the look of hunger in Cade’s eyes. He was staring at her the way the ranch hands stared at the girlsin town when they trucked the herd to market. She hadn’t understood the raw desire that fed that kind of expression until now—now that she felt it too. Cade McCall had turned her body into hot quicksand with no substance and no form. The feeling was heady. She drew in a deep smoldering breath.
    Knowing that she was in danger of losing control of both the situation and her own emotions, Rusty closed her eyes and broke the hot connection between them. No matter how much she might relish the feeling, she couldn’t allow this to happen … on his terms. It was time she pulled back and made him understand how it would be. She’d never played before. Now she’d try. Tilting her head, she parted her lips hesitantly, moistening them with her tongue.
    Cade told himself he hadn’t intended to kiss her. But when she leaned into him, a yearning deep inside caught fire, and suddenly he was assaulting her lips, his tongue inside her mouth, his body molding itself to the woman whose very essence had drawn him like a magnet since he’d first seen her in the airport.
    She wasn’t pulling away. Like a cat, she was making little purring sounds, digging her nails into his back, urging him to greater intensity. Her arms moved up and locked around his neck. Cade felt a tremor sweep through her, rippling up those arms and settling in fingertips that asked for more than he’d expected to give. He slid his hand down the back of the silky dress, past the slick mirrors, feeling the curve of her back and the rounded cushion of her bottom filling his palm as he cupped her boldly to his body.
    Cade groaned. The very air he was breathing was blazing. The woman was burning him up.
    Suddenly Rusty tore her mouth from his and looked up. Her passion-filled eyes glazed with a confident surge of triumph. “I would say,” she whispered throatily, “that I passed your test, McCall. I’d say you want me. What do you think?”
    Her arms slid from around his neck, down across his heaving chest, pausing at his belly button, and coming to rest on what best measured his desire.
    Rusty knew her face was flushed. Her eyes felt dry, open too wide under his stern gaze. McCall was right about desire. Never in her wildest imagination had she anticipated this response to a man. From the moment she’d laid eyes on Cade McCall, every glance, every word had fanned the flicker of heat that had sprung to life when he’d embraced her.
    But the flame had flared out of