The Price of Fame Read Online Free PDF Page A

attraction.
    She tucked her bare feet up beneath her, pulled the pins out of her hair and teased her fingers through it, enjoying the new feeling of being feminine and free. Why eat out when you could feast on something much more pleasurable right here? Like hot masculine skin and lips and tongues and … Her mouth dried, her skin frizzled. She couldn’t help it; she giggled like a schoolgirl at the wicked thoughts running through her mind.
    She was still giggling when he walked in.

CHAPTER THREE
    N IC heard the feminine laughter as he pushed open the door. Husky with a hint of wicked. He grinned. Until he caught sight of her sitting on the chair, her face in profile as she stared out of the window, her dark hair aflame in the sun’s reddening light and his amusement shifted beyond a simple
Wow
to something approaching awe. Unbound and auburn, the glossy mass rejoiced around her shoulders like a celebration of freedom.
    She’d turned the TV on to a radio channel. Something soothing and blue and jazzy and she obviously hadn’t heard him come in, so he absorbed the moment with all his senses. The fragrance of her recent shower, the delight in her laugh, her sheer and glorious abandonment.
    And he realised he was witnessing something he doubted many people saw when they looked at Charlotte. The woman’s inner beauty. And an innate sexuality that he found irresistible. He had a feeling she didn’t show that side of herself often, much less share it.
    He hoped she’d share it with him.
    She’d swapped that seriously awful suit for the hotel’s robe. Was she naked underneath? His groin tightened. She still wore the pearls; their iridescence reflected the sun’s vermilion rays. He imagined lifting them, warm from herbody, and sliding his fingers beneath to explore her creamy throat.
    He couldn’t be certain she’d changed into the robe as an invitation or prelude to sex. It made sense that she’d wear it since their luggage was checked in at the airport. But that was about the only thing that made sense right now because for the life of him he couldn’t remember ever being this captivated by a woman before.
    Again the sense that this was different—
she
was different—slid through him like a ripple on a millpond. He shook off the shivery silvery sensation and discreetly cleared his throat to announce his presence. ‘Anyone for soggy gourmet pizza?’
    She swung to face him and a thousand different emotions flitted over her expression before she settled for happy-to-see-him. ‘Yes, please.’ She uncurled herself and stretched out a pair of long shapely legs in front of her. ‘Where did you find pizza?’
    ‘The airport’s café. The last one. Or the last half of one. I had to fight off the hungry hordes.’ After setting the box on the desk, he switched on the lamp, then reached for the bottle of wine on the shelf above the bar fridge.
    She rose, smiling and shrugging the lapels of the robe closer. ‘My hero.’
    His hand jerked a bit at that as he upended two glasses. ‘You want wine?’
    ‘Thanks.’ She lifted the lid on the cardboard container. ‘Yum, I love artichokes.’ She peered closer. ‘It
is
artichoke, isn’t it?’
    He grinned. ‘I think so.’
    She reached for her handbag on the coffee table, pulled out a linen napkin embroidered with her name, then proceeded to polish up the motel’s cutlery.
    Swallowing his surprise, he opened the bottle, then seta couple of paper plates next to the pizza box. ‘You like Italian?’
    ‘I do, but seafood’s my favourite.’ She scooped up the slices with a knife, set them on the plates. ‘There’s a fabulous seafood place at Glenelg, on the Marina Pier. Their King George whiting is to die for.’
    ‘I know the one.’ He didn’t tell her his apartment overlooked said pier as he splashed a generous amount of the ruby liquid into the glasses. ‘And I agree with your review. It’s one of my favourite food haunts when I’m in Adelaide.’
    ‘Mine