She put down the bread she was holding and stared at him. "I beg your pardon?"
“By what standards do you judge a prospective husband?”
She reached for her glass and drank as she pondered what to answer to his question. "He must be a decent and respectable man," she finally declared.
"Tall, dark and handsome, too?"
"Not necessarily." She shrugged again, causing her clothes to lift slightly and expose the beautiful curve of her breasts.
He wished he hadn’t seen that fascinating. "Rich and successful, is that so?"
“At least, he must earn enough to support us. When we have children, I want to be at home to take care of them.”
"If you had to choose just one quality of your ideal man, what would it be?"
"The one who knows how to love," she said dreamily, her brown eyes widened, and a sharp smile flashed on her lips. While outside, a strong wind was blowing on the pine trees. "I want love more than anythi
She probably weighed no more than fifty-four kilograms in his eighty-five, but what was lacking in size, was more than recoverable in spirit. He had no doubt that she was given knowledge of the anatomy of the man, beyond the ability to cause serious bodily injury. Which should hinder him. Instead the thought of repelling her left him so suddenly and painfully aroused that, for the first time, he questioned the wisdom of his plan of attack. She should have been at his mercy, not in any other way, but for now, she remained utterly indifferent to his charms. On the other hand, he is not with her.Aida just came back to serve chicken breast and ziti stuffed with spinach, a welcome diversion, allowing him to fight his bad submission hormones and redirect his energy to more productive channels. "Why did you allow my father to force you into allowing him to travel, when he clearly didn't fit on it?" he asked casually, once they were alone again.&l
Except for setting aside an hour a day to polish your halo! Struggling to hide his skepticism, Chris said, "All the work and no play seems unfair. We'll see what we can do to change that."A sudden influx of wind moved through the French doors, making her jump. "The thing being here is enough change. If the weather had cleared up, I'm sure Rocco wouldn't have upset me with the extraordinary day off to see the sights."“Count on both,” he said, acknowledging the opportunity when it showed up. "And I’m dedicating myself to act as tour guide.""That’s nice of you, Chris."No, no, he might have told her. Because whatever her motives, his were anything but pure. And because he meant it when he said he wasn’t a good person.They passed the leftover food in idle conversation, only interrupted by repeated bursts of rain on the windows, but before serving the coffee, she was about to run out of thing
Lara had been kissed before, many times, but always. with some part of her brain able to rate the experience objectively: too slobbery, too bland, too aggressive, too many teeth, too much heavy breathing, not enough tenderness. More often than not, kissing, she'd concluded, was a vastly overrated prelude to romance. Until Christian Imperial came on the scene, that was, and filled her with a single blow.Except "blow" was no more the right word to define his effect on her than "kiss" adequately described his action. What he did with his mouth transcended the ordinary and surpassed the divine. Cool and firm, it yet seared her with its heat. Though undemanding, it somehow stripped her of everything-her independence, her focus, her moral compass, even her sense of survival.Apart from one rash, distinctly forgettable experience, she'd chosen to remain celibate because sex for its own sake held no appeal, and she'd never come close to being in lo
She looked out at the flowers in brilliant bloom, at the peacocks strutting across the lawns, the blue arc of the sky and the stunning turquoise sea. Soon the rainy season would come to Vancouver, it's chilly southeasterly gales stripping the trees of leaves. People would be scurrying about under a forest of umbrellas where, just few weeks before, they'd been lying on the beaches taking in the last of summer's sunshine. "No," she said. "I'm happy to be here.""Good. Then you have no excuse for wanting to leave early."She thought not, either, until the beginning of her second week there, when Chris reappeared as suddenly as he'd left."So, this is where you're hiding," he said, coming upon her as she sat reading in a wicker love seat on the patio. "I've been looking everywhere for you."Though startled, she managed to hang on to her composure enough to meet his glance coolly and reply with commendabl
Aware her emotions swam dangerously close to the surface, she gave herself a mental shake, sat a little straighter in her seat and firmly changed the subject. "Thank you, but it all happened a long time ago, and we're here to talk about you, not me. So, tell me, Chris, exactly what frightened you off after that impulsive kiss last week? And please don't say you were too busy checking the main fuse box to find the cause of the power failure, because Ruben already told me you left after receiving a phone call. Had you forgotten you had a previous date, or was I so inept compared to the other women you know that you couldn't wait to escape me?""Neither," he said. "I had to go to work.""You work?""Well, yes, Lara," he said, laughing. "Don't most men my age?""Yes, but you don't seem the corporate type.""I'm not.""And it was the middle of the night."&
It felt good to hold a woman whose curves hadn't been ravaged by malnutrition. Whose bones, though delicate and fine, were not so brittle that he was afraid they'd break at his touch. Whose breasts hadn't withered from bearing too many children she hadn't been able to nourish properly. Who didn't shrink in fear when a man touched her. Who smelled of flowers, not poverty. "Stop it," he said, inhaling the sweet fragrance of her hair. "Stop what?" "Thinking. I can hear your brain working overtime." "Well, I can't help wondering—" He pulled her closer, enough for her warmth to melt the block of ice he carried inside and make him whole again. Whenever he returned from a particularly harrowing assignment, a woman's soothing voice and generous, vital body always helped erase the hopeless misery he never got used to witnessing; the wasted lives, the terror, the shocking evidenc
"Out on the town till all hours of the night with that no-good son of mine, were you?" Rocco inquired, glaring at her across the breakfast table when she joined him the next morning. "What if I'd needed you?""If you had, Ruben knew how to reach me.""That's beside the point.""And exactly what point are you making, Rocco? That I'm under house arrest and not allowed to leave the premises without your permission?"Ignoring her sarcasm, he said baldly, "You're asking for trouble, getting involved with Chris. Women are nothing but toys to him, created solely for his entertainment and pleasure. He'll play with you for as long as you amuse him, then drop you for the next one who catches his fancy. He'll break your heart without a second thought and leave you to pick up the pieces, just like all the others who came before you."Not about to admit she's pretty much reached the same conclusion herself
A flush of indignation stained his finely chiseled cheekbones. "I neither lost my nerve, nor anything else." "Then why the hasty brush-off?""There's a time and a place for everything, Lara, especially seduction. I'm not the sex-in-the-backseat-of-the-car type of guy-which isn't to say I didn't want to take you to bed. But you'd given no indication you'd have welcomed such an overture. Just the opposite, in fact. You never stopped talking.""If you'd bothered to ask," she said, "I could have told you we weren't as far apart in our thinking as you seem to suppose. I just did a better job of hiding it."He blinked. "Are you sure you know what you're saying?""Very sure. I realized the moment I set eyes on you that the chemistry between us could easily become explosive.""This isn't the first time you've left me at a loss for words," he said, almost stumbling over his reply, "and I