Blogger Bundle Volume VIII: SBTB's Harlequins That Hooked You Read online

  For a long time she said nothing. Instead she stood there silently, shivering from head to foot and drinking him in with her eyes as if she could fill her soul. He was rumpled from sleep, stubbled with a day’s beard growth, wrapped in the frayed blue terry robe he’d once let her wear. He was, simply, the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen.

  Dare stared back at her, noting the tremors that shook her, recognizing that she was cold but at a loss as to what to do about it. Once he would have touched her, warmed her with his body. Now he simply didn’t know if he was any longer entitled to such intimacy.

  What had brought her out in the middle of such a cold night? he wondered. What couldn’t wait until morning?

  “Andrea,” he said gently, “what’s wrong? Has something happened?”

  Shivering, she stepped toward him. “Hold me,” she whispered. “Please hold me.”

  He was more than willing to oblige. Closing the last bit of distance between them, he unbuttoned her parka with swift fingers and flung it aside. He started to bend so he could lift her, then suddenly paused. Taking her trembling shoulders in his hands, he looked down at her, forcing her to meet his gaze.

  “No more games, Andrea,” he said gruffly. “I’m in no mood for another scene like Wednesday morning. If you’re planning to kiss me off again—”

  “No…” she said hoarsely. “Oh, no. Dare, please…”

  He obliged, sweeping her trembling body up into his arms. She coiled her arms around his neck, clinging with a fierceness he’d never felt in her before as shivers continued to rack her.

  “Damn it,” he said roughly as he laid her on his bed, “why didn’t you call me before you came? How long did you stand out there?”

  She didn’t answer, watching him with hazy green eyes as, by the light of the small bedside lamp, he tugged her boots and then her jeans from her frozen body. His scent rose around her from the very sheets, warming the coldest place of all: her heart.

  “Come on, honey,” he said, lifting her. “Let’s get this sweater off so I can warm you.”

  Finally, at long last, her naked, shivering body was wrapped in the heat of his, swaddled in his arms, in his blankets, in his bed. He stroked her hair and shoulder, tucked her head under his chin, covered her legs with his.

  “What happened, darlin’?” he asked gently. “Tell me what happened.”

  The endearments, the tender caresses, his concern, thawed her as much as his heat. She’d feared he might have come to hate her for the way she’d left him, but he didn’t hate her. Of that much she was sure. Now she had to face whatever it was he really felt, and she had no right to ask that of him until she’d given him her own honesty.

  “I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice, her breath stirring the soft hair on his chest.

  “Sorry for what?” he asked, his soothing hands never hesitating in their caresses.

  “Leaving you.”

  Now his hands did hesitate. Noticeably. “You did what you felt you had to,” he said gruffly, and resumed stroking her shoulder.

  “I was afraid,” she admitted. “I was terrified.”

  “Of me?” He was stunned by the notion.

  “No, not of you. Of me. Leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I was afraid to stay.”

  Something in him started to unknot, just a little, and made it possible for him to drop a kiss on her forehead. “I kind of got that feeling,” he said in what he hoped was an encouraging voice.

  “I was afraid of myself,” she admitted in a voice that was barely above a whisper. Her heart had climbed into her throat, and she knew that this time there was truly no rip cord. Closing her eyes tightly, she stepped out into space. “I was afraid of how much I love you.”

  Dare was electrified by her words. He had practically given up hope of ever hearing them. He closed his eyes and hugged her nearer. “Just how much do you love me?” he heard himself ask huskily.

  Andrea’s voice quavered. “I love you so much that I don’t want to imagine life without you.”

  “I love you, too,” he managed to say gruffly through a tightening throat. “For the last couple of days my future had been looking about as barren as the prairie in January.”

  “But what do you want from me?”

  The cry pierced his heart. Bending his head, he sought her mouth with his and kissed her with aching tenderness. “Sweetheart, what I want from you is you. Just the way you are. I never hoped I’d find a woman who can give me as much as you do. You’re a friend, a colleague and a lover. I couldn’t ask for more.”

  There was more she needed to ask, but for the moment she was overwhelmed by the need to show him her love. Pushing him gently backward, she rose above him beneath the tent of the blankets. On hands and knees she straddled him, then lowered her head to take hungry possession of his mouth.

  At first Dare was content to let her lead, but before long the hunger she always evoked in him began to pulse through him, and he reached for her, wanting her closer, much closer.

  Andrea caught his hands, lacing her fingers with his. “No,” she whispered huskily, smiling almost drowsily down at him. “Let me. This time, let me.”

  This was the first time he had ever taken the passive role in lovemaking, and he found the experience at once gratifying and torturous. In relinquishing control, he began to learn the awesome dimensions of the need this woman could arouse in him.

  Because Dare had always taken charge of their lovemaking, Andrea knew very little of what he liked for himself. Aware of her lack of experience, she moved slowly, listening attentively to his breathing, heeding the responsive movements of his muscles. She found a sensitive spot behind his jaw, a cord in his neck where a nip could make him groan. She already knew that his nipples were as sensitive as hers, but when she found one hard little button in the soft fur, she set about discovering just what pleased him best.

  “Oh! Andrea…”

  She wriggled away from his hands and sought lower, as excited by his responses as she had ever been excited by his touches and kisses. She loved everything about this man, she realized. Everything. His rough-soft contrasts, his hardness and smoothness. The hair on his chest and legs, and in his groin. The way his muscles bunched beneath her hands, the way his hands grasped her and held her and guided her…

  The way he groaned and caught her hips, this time refusing to let her escape. The way he showed her how to lower herself onto him, the way he reached out and touched her most secret place, depriving her of any will at all except the will to be his.

  The way he made her his woman. The way he completed her and filled her and let her know she was all this man would ever need.

  The way he held her to his chest with trembling arms afterward. The way he kissed her and stroked her hair back from her damp face, the way he pulled the comforter over them but wouldn’t let her move away. The way he fell asleep with her, their bodies still joined, his arms snug around her, her weight a reassurance on his chest.

  “Wake up, darlin’,” a husky male voice growled in her ear. “It’s noon, and I’ve run out of patience.”

  Andrea was smiling even before she pried open her eyelids. A gentle kiss on the lips broadened the smile even more.

  “Tell me I didn’t dream last night,” she murmured, fully opening her sleepy eyes.

  “I was going to ask you to tell me the same thing, sweetheart.” His face just inches from hers, he ran a finger along her cheek and smiled into her eyes. “Did you really say you love me?”

  “I love you.” She said it positively, in a soft, sleepy voice. “With my whole heart.”

  “Enough to discuss marriage?”

  Her breath caught, and the sleepiness vanished from her eyes. When she didn’t say anything immediately, tension began to grow in Dare. He honestly didn’t know if he had the patience to wait her out again.

  “Okay,” he said. “Too heavy before coffee.”

  He rolled out of bed, and Andrea saw that he was wearin