Unmasking Juliet Read Online Free PDF

Arabella was so utterly revolting he couldn’t bear the taste of the word in his mouth.
    Alone at last, Leo dropped his weary head in his hands. Sugar craned her tiny neck and swiped the side of his face with her tongue. Her fluff ball of a tail beat against his thigh.
    He was home, all right.
    Home, sweet home.

3
    At the first brush of the mysterious woman’s lips on his, Leo was fully aware he should stop her. He really should. She was clearly acting on impulse. And even though she was a most effective seductress—more so than she realized, he suspected—he had the distinct impression this wasn’t the sort of behavior she often engaged in.
    Maybe that’s why he found it so damned hot that he lost control of his senses. Still, somewhere in the periphery of his consciousness, he knew he should just gently unclench her hands from around his tie and remove his lips from hers.
    That’s what a gentleman would do.
    But being passionately kissed by a beautiful masked woman in the golden light of a harvest moon had a way of making him forget he was a gentleman. He’d forgotten pretty much everything altogether, including his headache.
    Jet lag...what jet lag?
    She tasted exactly as a barefoot goddess standing in the middle of a vineyard should—warm, sweet, like a sun-kissed cluster of merlot grapes. A predatory thrill surged through him, the likes of which he’d never experienced. Not with Rose. Not with anyone.
    He was in the middle of what was probably the sexiest experience of his life, and he didn’t even know her name. He couldn’t see much more than a hint of her face. Her mask glittered in the moonlight and left everything to his imagination, save for a pair of jade-green eyes and her full-lipped, most kissable mouth.
    He groaned into that mouth. He couldn’t help himself. She responded with a helpless whimper that just about drove him to his knees. His tie slipped through her fingertips as her hands found his back, sliding over his muscles in a path of brazen exploration. His own hands fisted in the wispy netting of her dress and pulled her closer until she was crushed fully against his chest.
    God help him, he was on the verge of unzipping her fluffy ballerina gown right there among the canopies of grapevines. What was wrong with him? It wasn’t like him to abandon every last shred of restraint. Although he should have known he was in trouble when he first spotted her standing there.
    She’d painted such a pretty picture among the grapes, with her strapless midnight-blue gown exposing a perfect pair of feminine shoulders, waves of dark hair tumbling down her moonlit back. Her mask was decorated with an abundance of dazzling crystals that formed dramatic cat eyes. He wasn’t sure if he was looking at an actual woman or a vision—a lifelong fantasy that until that moment he hadn’t even known he had. He’d taken one look at her and wanted to sink his teeth into her creamy white shoulder. The image had flashed through his mind, as vivid as a fiery Tuscan sunset. Strange. He wasn’t ordinarily the shoulder-biting type. Or the biting type at all.
    Maybe the near-death experience of his bachelorhood had done something to him. Something potent. Something primal. Or maybe it was just her.
    He’d wandered back out on the patio in search of a moment of peace before he had to drag himself to the ballroom and let his uncle parade him around like the prodigal son. Instead of clarity, he’d found a woman. It had been those bare feet that did him in. Barefoot. In a ball gown. In the dirt. The contrast had been so striking, he’d done a double take. And when he did, something about the sight of her pink-polished toes spoke of a heartbreaking vulnerability that reached straight to his core.
    With his mouth still on hers, he tangled his fingers in her hair until he found the smooth satin bow that held her mask in place. He nibbled the corner of her lips and gave the end of the ribbon a gentle tug.
    She stiffened in