Tidewater Lover Read Online Free PDF

a sob of fear by sinking her teeth into her lip. She detected a trace of liquor—Scotch—in the warm breath that fanned her cheek.
    "Will you stop struggling?" he demanded roughly. "I don't want to hurt you."
    His assertion flashed through her brain. Immediately Lacey recalled some professional advice she had either read or heard that suggested a woman should not do anything to incite an attacker into further violence.
    Gradually she stopped fighting his hold, although her muscles remained tense, waiting for his next move and the slimmest chance of escape. Her breathing was labored and deep.
    "That's better," he said in approval, and shifted to one side, easing the weight from on top of her while retaining a firm hold, as if knowing she would run at the first opportunity.
    "Let me go!" Lacey flashed in a hoarse voice. She knew he wouldn't, but needed to make the demand so he would realize she wasn't totally submissive.
    "Not yet."
    In the dim light she caught the brief glimmer of white teeth and knew he was smiling—laughing at her. It stung that she was so helpless in the face of his superior strength.
    He seemed to move toward her and she cringed into the cushions. But his arm reached above her head to switch on the lamp beside the sofa.
    Lacey blinked warily in the blinding light, calming under the inspection by the dark blue eyes. She couldn't hold his gaze for long. It was too strangely disturbing, oddly making her feel guilty, and the sensation rattled her.
    "Now for some explanations," he stated, eyeing her steadily. "What are you doing in this house?"
    "I'm…I'm living here." Lacey frowned in confusion.
    Doubt flickered sardonically in his narrowed gaze. "You own the house?" he queried.
    "Well, no, not exactly." She wondered why his question made her feel so uncomfortable. She had a perfectly legitimate right to be in the house.
    Her left hand was free and she raised it to brush a glistening brown strand of hair from the corner of her eye. His narrowed gaze followed the movement, as if anticipating that she might be intending to strike out at him again.
    "Not exactly?" He repeated her phrase. In the blink of an eye, her left hand was caught by his. "And what about your husband? You said he'd be here any minute. Yet your ring finger is bare and there's no sign that you've ever worn a ring on that finger."
    Lacey had been caught in her lie and she felt as guilty as she had when she was a child. "It becomes obvious that you weren't expecting your husband, despite your provocative garb."
    His gaze flicked to the filmy yellow pajamas more or less covering her breasts, the torn strap resting in her cleavage. Lacey was hotly reminded of the little clothing she had on—and the firm outline of his male length beside her on the narrow sofa.
    "I don't think," he continued, "you're expecting anyone."
    "You can't be sure of that," she retorted.
    "Can't I?" he countered smoothly. "Women invariably cake themselves with makeup and dab perfume in erotic places when they plan to entertain their lovers. Your face is scrubbed clean and—" he turned her left hand and lifted the inside of her wrist closer to his face, catching the clean fragrance of soap instead of expert-sire perfume "—you aren't wearing Chanel No. 5."
    "So what!" Lacey jerked her hand away. "None of this is any of your business and I don't have to explain to you. You're the one who broke into the house and accosted me. You…" She stopped short, realizing she shouldn't have reminded him of his reason for being there nor that she could easily identify him to the police.
    The metallic glitter in his eyes reinforced the thought. "I broke into the house?" He repeated her words with a steely coldness that rang a familiar note in her memory, but Lacey was too caught up in the present to dwell on it. "You have an uncanny knack for telling tales."
    "Telling tales…?" she began indignantly.
    "Yes, tales." His hand moved. In the next instant he was holding a key in front