Tempting Fate Read Online Free PDF

"'please try to remember your position. A member of our firm never raises her voice or challenges a judge in the courtroom.' Only on the golf course," Diana added in a mutter.
    Still grinning, Caine swung an arm around her shoulders. "And do you challenge judges, Miss Blade?"
    "Frequently. If Aunt Adelaide wasn't bosom buddies with Barclay's wife, I'd have been out on my ear by now. As it is, I'm a glorified law clerk."
    "So why are you still there?"
    "I have a deep supply of patience." His arm felt warm and friendly over her shoulder. Without thinking, Diana moved closer. "Aunt Adelaide wasn't thrilled about my choosing law in the first place, but she was instrumental in my securing a position at Barclay's." That rankled. Diana swallowed the light trace of bitterness. Her voice was low and even when she continued. "In her way, she was pleased that I was working for an old friend and a prestigious firm. If I hang in long enough, they might just give me something other than traffic."
    "Afraid of her?"
    Instead of being insulted, Diana laughed. The fear had been gone for years. Even the memory was vague. "Aunt Adelaide? I hope I've got more spine than that. No." She tossed her face up to the wind. "I owe her."
    "Do you?" Caine murmured, half to himself. "My father has a saying," he mused aloud. "There's no fee for family."
    "He doesn't know Aunt Adelaide," Diana remarked dryly. "Oh, look at the gulls!" She pointed skyward as a pair of them swooped overhead and out to sea. "One flew close enough to touch when I stood out on my balcony this morning. I wonder why they make such a lonely sound when they seem perfectly content." When she shivered, Caine tightened his arm around her.
    "Cold?"
    "Yes." But she smiled up at him. "I like it."
    His breath was cool against her face, showing itself in a thin white mist that was quickly snatched by the wind. Diana was so entranced by his eyes that she hardly noticed that the arm around her shoulders had shifted, drawing her closer. Then they were face to face and her arms had slipped up his back, over the cold, smooth leather. Her heartbeat was a dull thud that might have belonged to someone else. She heard the wind echo off the water and surround them as if they were on some lonely northern island. With one hand, he cupped the back of her neck with cool, strong fingers. Diana felt the cold, wet drops land on her face before she saw the flakes.
    "It's snowing."
    "Yeah." Caine lowered his lips to within a whisper of hers, then hesitated. He heard her quiet shudder of breath before she banished the distance.
    Softly, slowly, his mouth roamed over hers. It was a cool, lazy seduction at odds with the biting wind and racing snow. He drew her closer gradually, until her body fit tightly against his. She could feel those hard, seeking fingers run up and down the nape of her neck, teasing her mind with images of what they could do to her body. While she was distracted by them, his mouth became more greedy, pulling response from her before she was aware of the demand.
    Her hands hooked around his shoulders and locked tight. Her passion seemed to rise like the wind, but it was hot, sultry, as he took his lips on a long, mesmerizing journey over her face. She heard the thick echo of crashing waves then nothing but the whisper of her own name as he traced her ear with his tongue. Diana pressed herself against him, searching and finding his roaming mouth with her own.
    There was no teasing this time, no subtle greed. Now it was all flash, all fire. Neither of them was aware of the cold any longer as they demanded everything the other possessed. Diana felt all of her small, inner secrets slipping away from her, exposed, even as she felt herself being filled again with needs that were as much Caine's as her own. And the needs were deeper and more complex than anything she'd ever known.
    Not just a hunger for the taste of a mouth, not just a desire for the hard, strong feel of a man's arms—it was a longing