Under the Wire Read Online Free PDF Page A

convincing. At least they had been in the moment. She'd needed to hear them. Needed to hear that she deserved to feel something other than lost and alone. And she so wanted to believe that something could make her forget about her empty life for a little while.
     
    She brushed the bougainvillea blossom over her cheek and glanced up at him, at his bold, dark profile, his exotic good looks, and thought, Why not? She'd been a good girl all of her life. Good daughter. Good wife.
     
    And what had it gotten her? She was a disappointment to her parents, who considered her nursing degree a failure because they had wanted her to be a doctor. She was divorced. A disappointment to herself—and apparently to the man whose interpretation of "forsaking all others" only applied if he didn't get caught.
     
    Maybe Manolo Ortega was offering her exactly what she needed. Despite all of his insistence that this wouldn't be casual, that he knew her, knew who she was, and wanted something more with her, she suffered no illusions.
     
    He was offering her nothing more than a no-strings, no-strain night of intimacy. A wild night with a virile younger man, a hot Latin lover.
     
    But more than that, he didn't know that he was offering relief from the real world that seemed to be closing in with grief. For Kara. For Lily's own life that had once been long on dreams but now seemed seeped in despair.
     
    With his hand riding the small of her back, she let him walk her out the door toward an armed soldier who opened a tall, ornately scrolled iron gate and let them out of the fenced-in grounds.
     
    "My sister has an apartment only a short walk from here." Manolo pulled Lily close to his side as they descended stone steps to street level. "She's out of the city on business and invited me to stay while I'm on leave."
     
    If Lily was going to back out, now was the time to tell him that her moment of insanity had passed. That her brain had re-engaged and that one-night stands with young, sexy strangers were back on her "don't even think about it" list.
     
    Yet she kept on walking. With the moon shining down, the warm, masculine scent of this impossibly gorgeous man holding her close against his side, the strong hand wrapped around her ribs hovering tantalizingly close to her breast, she kept on walking. Remembering the commanding presence of that hand on her breast, the touch of his fingers against that part of her that said yes a hundred times to every one time she'd tried to muster up a no.
     
    How long had it been since she'd let a man touch her this way? A year? Longer? God, she couldn't even remember.
     
    And how sad was that?
     
    His kisses make me feel alive.
     
    Alive. Yes. Lily needed to feel alive.
     
    Because Kara was dead.
     
    Lily stopped abruptly as guilt slapped her in the face. She stared at the sidewalk, then up at him.
     
    He frowned, more concerned than curious. "Lily. There is that sad look again. The one I cannot bear to see."
     
    "I'm sorry. I thought I could do this."
     
    He touched a hand to her face. "So, so hard on yourself. What sin, sweet Lily, do you think you have committed that you cannot allow yourself one night of pleasure?"
     
    A consuming ache filled her chest. "It's so easy for you, isn't it? Sex. Seduction. Living for the moment."
     
    He looked charmingly perplexed. "But of course it is easy. It is natural, yes? God gave us this gift... for man to pleasure woman. For woman to pleasure man. The only sin is in denial. In not accepting His generosity."
     
    The ache intensified, sweet and deep and knotted in yearning, and she waffled again. Good Lord. Why couldn't she just embrace what seemed so easy for him to accept? Quit being a wimp.
     
    "It does not have to be so complicated," he said gently, making her weaken again in the face of the earnest guile in his dark eyes.
     
    "Lily." He whispered her name in that way he had of breaking it into two words and making it sound as if he adored each one. Adored