Stone Kissed Read Online Free PDF Page B

capable of lying. Delia pushed back against his chest and thighs, but Grant didn’t give. Instead, he tightened his grip. Her breasts, sweaty and swollen, were resting on the corded muscles of the back of his arm. Thank God it was dark because, damn it, she was blushing.
    Grant slid his arm out from under the swell of her breasts, and her nipples sprang to attention. She closed her eyes, clenched her jaw, and his large hands encircled each of her upper arms. He lifted so she could shift back off the beam through the doorway. Then he steered her toward the stairwell.
    Delia turned to look up at him, “How did you know I would come here?” Her breath was shallow, fast. She struggled to bring it under control.
    He shrugged in the moonlight, and his teeth flashed. “It’s what I would have done.”
    He was here, with her. Grant Wolverton was touching her again as she’d always hoped and never believed he would do. She was delighted—and she was disgusted with herself.
    He released her arms. Delia stepped back and gestured. “After you.”
    “No.” He swooped down, his face inches from hers, and she could feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek. “We can’t have you breaking your neck.”
    She held herself rigid to keep from giving into impulses she couldn’t name.
    “It’s not safe here, Delia. Let’s go.”

Chapter Three
    Grant steered them out of the house. Delia felt fragile in his hands, ephemeral, and as she stepped out onto the front patio, he walked faster, consumed by the irrational fear she would lift her arms and flutter away.
    He knew what was wrong with him. The buzzing in his blood had only grown since she’d opened the door to that stuffy little room and brought with her light and energy and air. He’d kept himself under control in the lawyer’s office. He’d focused on listing the needs of the house while he sat on the back bench, waiting for her. But when he had his arms around her body, when her soft curves pressed into him, he’d become as hard as the brick itself. He was confusing his sense of click with horniness born of a dry spell, because he’d been spending too many hours doing too much of the wrong work. It was nothing more than that.
    “Let’s discuss your future,” he said.
    But she didn’t respond. She just marched through the unmown grass to the bench behind the house. She smelled sweaty-sweet, and in the moonlight he could see the curve of her neck rising out of her sorry excuse for a T-shirt. The thin cotton bra was worse than useless, emphasizing the gentle swell of her breasts even as her nipples all but pressed through the fabric. But she was only a woman. No one special.
    This house, however, was special. Grant had found his home. The picture on the computer had called to him, and when he stepped out of his car this morning Grant had felt the click, the same feeling he got when he discovered a good piece—a dusty old statuette in an English professor’s suburban ranch house or a rare painting of a landscape lying face down on an attic floor. Grant was a success, in part, because he had the knack for digging the jewel out of the trash heap. His senses were singing even now.
    Steward House was a grand old dame. She was sturdy, with thick walls and strong beams upon a deep foundation. He would clean away every scar left by the fire until she was radiant. He could protect this house, and she could protect his sister, Randi. He would turn operations at Wolverton International over to Lars and his expansion plans, and he himself would go back to hunting for treasure. With this house as his base, his foundation, Grant would find peace.
    But not today. He’d have no peace until he closed the deal and washed his hands of this confusing sprite with her large eyes and wary face. She folded her arms and glared up at from the rusty wrought iron bench. Instead of sitting beside her, Grant stood behind the bench, holding his hands behind his back. She was a means to an end, a