The Bearwalker's Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page A

bit strong,” she conceded.
    He chuckled under his breath. “You make it sound as if I can’t handle my liquor.”
    She unwound a little more. “Her stuff’s worse.”
    “Must be. I’m not given to bouts of madness.
    Truly. I beg you to accept my deepest apology.”
    He didn’t really expect her to grant his plea, but she remained silent for a time, and then said, “Very well. I accept, as long as you don’t do it again.”
    Her open candor touched him. “I’m indebted to you, Miss, and give you my word I won’t lift a finger against you.”
    Karin’s trembling further diminished and she seemed more relaxed. He really should let her slip back to her chamber, but hated to relinquish his hold. The brew might be partly responsible for his rash behavior. His life wouldn’t be worth a rat’s ass if the McNeal men found them together like this, not to mention little brother. Even so, stealing even one single kiss would be well worth all hell breaking loose.
    Blocking Shequenor’s growls from his mind like the ominous rumbles of a brooding storm, along with everyone else’s, Jack breathed a whisper into her ear. “You are the sweetest girl, Karin McNeal.”
    She hesitated as if taken aback, but not necessarily unwilling to hear him.
    Jack slipped his fingers through her hair, luxuriating in each silken strand. What extravagance. The cascade fell to her waist. Braided, it would be as thick as his wrist. “I’ve never met your like before.”
    “No man has,” she said simply.
    “I’m honored to be the first.”
    Shrieking wind buffeted the house, but the checked curtains around the bed made a cozy hideaway. His present circumstance provided as ample an opportunity as Jack was likely to get. He turned Karin toward him so that they lay face to face, her questioning eyes just visible in the dim light.
    He sought to put her at ease. “I won’t harm a hair on your fair head. I swear it.”
    She explored him with the uncertainty of a doe, but didn’t pull away. Neither did he draw her against him as he mightily wanted to. Instead, he restrained himself and let her alluring form remain slightly apart from his heated body, even though a glance at her loose shift gave him a glimpse of her rounded breasts. Surely, she was a fevered hallucination and would fade into nothingness.
    She didn’t. Still she gazed at him, curious, timid, yet with undeniable admiration in her widened eyes.
    Jack hadn’t lost his touch altogether. As though reaching to an edgy filly, he slowly lifted his hand and trailed his fingers over her smooth cheek. She shivered slightly, but remained watchful, inquisitive.
    So far, so good. He cupped his hand around her chin, an undulating curve in her oval face, such delicate features… such innocence…a rare woman-child. “Your face feels like petals.”
    “Should you be touching it, sir—Jack?”
    “Oh yes. I’ve journeyed untold miles to find you, dear lady.” He could almost see the thoughts whirring in her mind as she tried to work this out.
    “How did you know I would be here?”
    He wasn’t going into all of that now, not when he had her so delectably close. “Shhhh...I’ll tell you later,” he said, tilting her mouth nearer and nearer to his. She didn’t try to evade him but remained unresisting, almost mesmerized. And perhaps she was.
    Jack fell under some kind of spell as he gently covered her untutored lips with his knowing mouth. She yielded to his tenderness like one tumbling into a dream, and he took every care with her virgin kiss...pressing her soft lips with a light coaxing touch. What a sensual delight she was and oblivious of her appeal, which only made her more so. Everything about her was new and protected, like tasting honey from a never before discovered bee tree, or finding a precious stone no one else had touched.
    Desire pulsed through him with shocking force and he barely suppressed a groan. His loins tightened as he fought the nearly overwhelming urge to