Shameless (The Contemporary Collection) Read Online Free PDF Page B

glance at her, look back at the road, then turn his head toward her again. The planes of his face were tinted soft emerald by the dash lights, though his eyes remained in shadow. His gaze rested on her hair, spilling over her shoulder; they skimmed over her breasts, where they pressed against the soft flannel, and touched the opening at the bottom of the robe where it had fallen away from her knees again. As he lifted his eyes, they locked with hers across the width of seat that separated them.
    Cammie felt the brush of heat like an intimate caress where his gaze had touched her. She wanted to look away from him, but it was as if her regard was caught in an invisible snare. Never in her life had she been so aware of a man, of the powerful shaping and contained strength of his body. There was something elemental about him, and as enduring as the pineland hills of the game reserve itself. At the same time, he had internal barriers like thick and impenetrable second-growth timber, barriers that could be used for protection, or as an ambush for the unwary.
    It also seemed, watching him, that he could be right in describing himself as animalistic. There appeared to be an untamed and dangerous side to his nature, like the rare tawny cougar known as a swamp panther. And yet, she felt no fear of it. Rather, she recognized in the soft singing of the blood in her veins a perilous need to discover whether, if she came close, he would turn and attack or permit her to touch him, to share his wildness.
    Wrenching her head around, she stared out into the darkness. She clenched her teeth as she waited for that instant of insanity to pass.
    The house where Cammie lived loomed dark and still as they turned into the drive and wound their way up the hill toward it. Older than the Fort by several decades, it was identified in the public records as Evergreen, though most people called it the Greenley place. Georgian in concept, it rose two stories high, with fanlighted center doorways, evenly spaced windows, and upper and lower porches grafted on in the style typical of pre-Civil War homes built by Louisiana planters. Modernized and added on to over the years, it had a gracious aspect left over from a quieter and slower time.
    During its antebellum heyday the place had been surrounded by several thousand acres of cotton land. The more distant fields had gradually been allowed to go back to woodland, while closer acreage with road frontage had been sold off to pay mortgages or for ready cash. There was less than eight acres kept clear around the house these days, though to Cammie's mind, that was plenty to mow and trim in the summer.
    Keith had hated living in the old Greenley mansion. He had called it drafty and musty-smelling, and complained that something always needed repair. He wanted to sell it and build something contemporary and convenient, with lots of glass and open decks, preferably out on the lake east of town.
    Cammie had refused. She had inherited Evergreen when her parents died, and she loved it. She had to admit he was right about repairs; the house seemed to chugalug money. Still, the spacious rooms, the generations-old furniture, and the garden with its huge old plants, which had been put into the ground by Greenley women long dead, were constant joys. She couldn't imagine living anywhere else.
    Reid strode with her through the light rain toward the back door. Cammie saw his appraising glance as it moved over the house looming above them. She wondered if he was comparing it to the Fort.
    She also noticed, as they neared the steps leading up to the back porch, that his narrowed gaze raked the dimness beyond the house and behind the glow of the security light at the end of the drive. Though she looked also, she could make out nothing in the dark and swirling mists of rain. No doubt his watchfulness was a habit, another of those instincts he had talked about. It was oddly comforting.
    Turning as they reached the shelter of the back