Teresa Medeiros Read Online Free PDF Page A

checking her for injuries, covering her. But he had worn only his tattered dungarees. Evenwith the best of intentions, one of them was going to be naked. And he wasn’t yet sure his intentions were the best.
    He rested his chin on steepled fingers, unable to drag his gaze away from the rosy little nymph. He couldn’t fathom the effect she had on him. He felt as if someone had punched him low in the gut, driving out all the breath with one blow. His rising desire was a foreign heat that bore no relation to the rare fumble in the dark he might share with some generous Maori woman or Auckland whore.
    He felt he might sit forever, afraid of not touching her, more afraid of touching her, locked in her strange spell until someone dragged him away. The breeze whispered encouragement even as the waves chanted a warning. They might have been the only two alive. For the first time Justin understood Zeus’s temptation to turn himself into a swan to mate with Leda in the forest. He knew the hunger of the fierce knight Huldbrand groaning for the siren song of his sea witch Undine.
    A primitive enchantment beckoned him. It had nothing to do with the civilized constraints of his time, but hearkened back to another era, when a man had knelt between a woman’s thighs with no need for polite small-talk to woo her heart.
    Justin buried his face in his hands. Sweet Lord, his morals were becoming as muddled as his dreams. Perhaps he should return to England, where he wouldn’t be tempted to ravish a girl just because she’d had the ill luck to wash up naked on his beach.
    He shoved his hands through his hair, determined to take some action. He would have to carry her back to the hut. Unless he wanted to drag her by the hair, that would mean touching her.
    He sat up on his knees. The feathery fingers of his shadow fell over her, brushing all the plump swells and lush hollows his hands burned to touch. Dragging in a breath that was more a groan, he eased an arm beneath hershoulders. The coral petals of her mouth parted in sleepy surrender. Justin’s tongue darted out to moisten his lips.
    What could one kiss hurt? Even Sleeping Beauty’s prince had stolen that much. He leaned forward, taking painstaking care that no less-principled part of his body should meet with hers. He touched her mouth softly with his own. Her lips were salty-sweet. Justin licked the salt away, glazing her lips with liquid moonlight. He couldn’t remember the last time he had kissed a woman. His head reeled. Only minutes ago he had been walking alone on the beach. Now he was kissing a goddess.
    A mistake. As her lips parted beneath the subtle, hungry pressure of his own, Justin knew kissing her had been a terrible mistake. But it was too late to extricate himself. He could only slide his tongue between her parted lips, making hot, slippery love to her mouth with all the tender ferocity his body craved. Her taste was magic and he couldn’t have pulled himself away if she had wrapped her legs around him and dragged him to her kingdom deep beneath the sea.
    He buried his face in her damp curls. The faintest aroma of vanilla clung to her hair, rendered erotic by its very purity. Just one touch, he promised himself. Just to rake his fingers across her sand-sugared skin, to cup the gentle swell of her breast in his palm …
    He was already reaching for her when the husky whisper came, so close to his ear it had the intimacy of his own thoughts. “I stabbed the last man who stuck his tongue in my mouth.”
    Justin slowly lifted his head. He hung there, caught dead in the sights of her sparkling brown eyes.
    “What’s wrong? I didn’t swallow it, did I?” Her pert nose crinkled as she laughed. Justin thought it was the most endearing thing he had ever seen.
    Her merry eyes went somber. She lifted her hand. Justin couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. Her fingers caught astray lock of his hair, brushed it gently from his brow. “You have the most extraordinary eyes,”