Julie Leto – Brazen & Burning (страница 8)

“I’ll bet it does. But I know pain. I think you’ll survive once I take the splinter out and get some ointment on. Think you can suck it up long enough for that?”

Sydney couldn’t contain a wisecrack, despite the ache in her foot. “If you remembered me, you wouldn’t ask,” she teased.

He met her stare, breaking into one of his heart-stopping smiles when she winked. Yes, she wanted him to catch the double entendre she’d made with the word “suck.” Too bad Renée returned before he could respond.

“Here.” Renée handed her brother the tweezers, then popped open the first-aid kit and slid it onto the couch beside Sydney. She remained quiet, but Sydney sensed a slump in her shoulders, as if Adam’s chastisement had hit home.

“Can I get you a lemonade?” Renée asked, her tone surprisingly close to sincere.

Sydney smiled. Apparently, she wasn’t the only woman in the room who had some sucking up to do. “That would be awesome, thanks.”

Renée nodded and hurried out of the room.

“Was that a truce?” Sydney asked as Adam twisted her foot gently to the side so he could see what he was doing.

“Seems like. Renée doesn’t like being called a bitch, particularly when she’s acting like one.”

“Bitch isn’t always a put-down, you know. There’s a whole movement that considers the word an acronym for Babe In Total Control of Herself.”

Adam grinned as he tried to wrangle the tiny silver tweezers with his big male fingers. This was why men didn’t pluck their eyebrows.

“I don’t suppose you’ve been elected the spokes-model for that movement, have you?” Adam asked, his tone wry.

Sydney’s spine straightened at the surge in her blood pressure. “Are you calling me a bitch?”

“See—no one likes it.”

Just at that moment, he tugged the splinter free, giving Sydney two justifiable reasons to yelp.

He held up the tweezers, still holding tight to a half-inch sliver of wood. “Yeowch. I really need to refinish all those steps.”

Sydney winced. The two-by-four had been removed, but her foot still stung like hell. She reached over and grabbed the ointment out of the first-aid kit.

“Here, let me.”

Sydney considered protesting, then realized his hands felt good. Had Adam ever given her a foot massage? She couldn’t remember, so she figured he must not have. There was nothing more noteworthy in a man’s pampering repertoire than the ability to give a good foot massage.

He cleaned the wound with a cotton ball doused with hydrogen peroxide, then dried her skin with a square of clean gauze. His movements were gentle, but sure. His hands strong and hot. His fingers nimble. Long. As his touch trickled over her increasingly sensitive skin, she found herself staring in fascination at his clipped nails, bruised knuckles and sunbaked skin.

Images of him sliding his hands up her bare thighs flashed in her mind. He no longer had the smooth hands of an artist, with only small calluses from pencils and pens. His hands were stronger now, rougher. And so much more interesting.

“You seem to remember your first aid,” she said, wondering if she should break the current of intimacy crackling between them. Or was the electricity all in her mind? All in her memory? All in her irrepressible libido?

Adam dabbed antibiotic ointment and then covered the wound with an adhesive bandage. He rubbed the ends in place, then continued to caress her with hard, intense strokes that lulled her muscles to instant relaxation.

She moaned.

“You have great feet.”

He continued to soothe the balls of her foot with circular motions that destroyed her ability to sit up straight. She sank back into the couch cushions and allowed his touch to ignite and kindle all the sexual wants she’d planned to have sated today, before she found out he didn’t remember her. Before she discovered that he’d nearly died.

“You have great hands,” she murmured.

“How great?”

She forced her eyes open enough to see the irreverent, wicked gleam in those almond eyes of his—the same gleam she’d seen a hundred times before. Like the night they’d made love on the terrace of her condo while a party went on in the courtyard below. Or the time he slipped a toe beneath her dress in a booth at a restaurant, and, finding her pantyless, had brought her to climax just as the waiter delivered another round of drinks. They’d been risk-taking lovers, hedonistic and selfish and adventurous.

Was any of that irreverence left?

He moved one hand to her arch, the other her ankle. He smoothed and rubbed until hot shards of fire sizzled upward, making the center seam of her jeans too tight against throbbing, intimate flesh.

“How great are my hands, Sydney?”

His calluses bit at her soft, pedicured flesh and she snagged her bottom lip with her teeth to staunch her moan. Even when he smoothed his fingers over her calves, encased in jeans, she experienced a potent reaction to his intense massage.

“Your hands are awesome. Still too low, in my opinion, but awesome.”

He shifted, kneeling flush against the couch so he could knead her thighs. He wedged his hips between her knees, bringing her eye-level with a bare chest still glistening from the heat. She took a deep breath and lost herself in the spicy male musk sizzling off his skin.

“How’s this?”

Sydney watched his gaze drop, watched the fascination intensify in his eyes, watched his mouth set in total concentration as he massaged her legs, his thumbs dipping lower and lower as his fingers worked their way higher and higher along her thighs—closer and closer to home. Every ounce of his attention was focused on his task, lulling her to complete relaxation.

He had one thing on his mind. And if that one thing was what Sydney suspected, she and Adam were about to have a very interesting afternoon.

4

A CUPBOARD SLAMMED in the kitchen, striking Adam with instant awareness of where he was—and of what he’d been about to do. He yanked his hands from Sydney’s legs and rocked back on his heels, his body thrumming, every inch of his muscle and flesh intrigued and aroused.

“You don’t have to stop,” she told him, her voice throaty, deep. When her lashes fluttered open, only a thin, green circle remained around pupils black with need.

“My sister’s in the other room.”

“Then let’s go somewhere private.”

She didn’t show a single sign of embarrassment that he’d almost committed a full sensual assault on her with his sister only a few steps away. Sydney’s expression reflected only desire—the hot, unadulterated need to feel his hands on her body, no matter who might walk in on them.

“I don’t know you,” Adam said, certain the fact didn’t bother him in the least, but he wasn’t brain-damaged enough to think it might not make a difference to her. No matter how much of a bad girl she pretended to be—or truly was—he intended to play on the up-and-up.

She leaned forward, grabbed his hands and pressed them to her rib cage. Her breathing wasn’t quite as steady as she let on, and the moisture seeping through her paper-thin blouse testified to a heat more intense than the ninety-degree temperatures outside. She was burning up from the inside out, and she wanted him to know.

“You do know me, Adam. Better than any man ever has. You just don’t remember right now.”

A tinge of desperation clung to her tone, slapping Adam with a heavy hand of reality. He could only give her part of what she wanted—the part that had to do with his hands on her flesh. Yeah, he could give her sexual pleasure. He could give her a damned good time. But she’d already admitted that she’d come looking for him because she wanted what they’d once almost had—a real relationship. And that was outside his power.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.