Ice Read online

  “And stop talking about buying a house in Portland. At least until you’ve visited North Carolina a time or two. It’s much warmer there.”

  “And you’re there.”

  He made an affirmative humming sound as he continued to move forward.

  Lolly felt all her cares, all her worries, unwinding, fading away. “That doesn’t seem at all like too much to ask, all things considered.”

  He put his mouth on hers again, and the kiss quickly took on a rhythm. Lolly wallowed in Gabriel’s heat and hardness, she welcomed the kiss, the connection, the warmth they generated … a warmth that transformed her from the inside out.

  Gabriel took his mouth from hers, but he didn’t move far. His nose touched hers; he was a breath away. “Lollipop, can I lick you?”

  “Yes,” she said, wrapping her arms around Gabriel’s neck and surging into him to send more water onto the floor. “Yes, you can.”

  About the Author

  Linda Howard is the award-winning author of many New York Times bestsellers, including Burn, Death Angel, Up Close and Dangerous, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Cover of Night, Killing Time, To Die For, Kiss Me While I Sleep, Cry No More, Dying to Please, Open Season, Mr. Perfect, All the Queen’s Men, Now You See Her, Kill and Tell, and Son of the Morning. She lives in Alabama with her husband and a golden retriever.

  Ice is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2009 by Linda Howington

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  eISBN: 978-0-345-51721-0

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  v3.0

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Other Books By This Author

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  About the Author

  Copyright