Page 57 of Heart of Danger
A big hand unfurled, palm up. He moved his hand to the center of the table. “Show me.” Impatience in his voice. Calling the crazy lady’s bluff. “Read me. Do that thing again, only not my feelings. My thoughts.”
Suddenly, that hand seemed so…enticing and inviting. Huge and hard and there, waiting for hers. An invitation that had never been extended to her, ever. Everyone ran away screaming the instant they got a whiff of her talent—hercurse—never to return. But not this man. He wanted a demonstration. He wanted to touch her.
Had she ever held hands with a man before? She’d been to bed with a couple of men after a few kisses and some dates, but…holding hands? Like walking home after a date, hand in hand? Hmmm.
No.
Her last date ended after dinner, without the movie, the balding banker leaving her at her doorstep, burning rubber in his desire to get away from her, just as fast as his BMW could carry him because somehow she’d brushed against him as he radiated lust for the hot, hunky male waiter and without thinking she let on that she’d tuned into his attraction.
She’d had to switch banks.
There was no touching anyone she didn’t trust and she trusted no one. Maybe that explained this wild desire—this driving compulsion—to lay her hand in his. It had nothing to do with reading him and everything to do with touching him.
“Read me.” Again that impatience in his deep, rough voice. Eyes blazing with challenge. “Tell me what I’m thinking.”
It doesn’t work that way, Catherine wanted to say except—who knew how it worked? It just did, completely independently of her will or even desire.
There was absolutely no disobeying this man, though, not when he was sitting like a force of nature across a small table, hand outstretched, emanating huge vibes of attraction. He was a natural leader, the true alpha male humans had been programmed to follow by thousands of years of dangerous history.
Her hand moved of its own accord.
Without thinking about it, without willing it at all, Catherine reached out and put her hand in his. His large hand immediately curled up around hers until her hand was surrounded by warm hard male flesh.
Oh my.
It felt so very good.Hefelt so very good. Her hand tingled, warmth prickled all the way up her arm. It was like being encased by hot steel.
“Well” he asked impatiently? “What am I thinking?”
She was completely overwhelmed by the physical sensations buzzing through her, rattling around in her head as she looked at her hand which had disappeared in his. His grip was strong, unbreakable, yet painless.
“What?” He tightened his grip for a second, breaking the spell.
Castle gates clanging down, defending the citadel. Iron control like a wall, dark and impenetrable.
“I don’t know what—” She began in a whisper when all of a sudden she did. She did know what he was thinking. Feeling, rather. And…oh my.
The dark, impenetrable wall fell, crumbled. Behind it was a white hot blast of desire, like walking in front of an open furnace. Blinding heat that reached right past her skin into her body.
He scowled, shook himself as if rejecting something, but didn’t let go of her hand. “What are you getting?” he asked impatiently.
A lifetime of training, years and years of suppressing the truth when it was unpalatable and unwanted crumbled too and the truth simply plopped out of her mouth.
“Desire,” she breathed. “You feel desire. For me.”
Waves of it, lapping up against her like a hot sea.
Utter silence. Neither of them breathed. He finally broke the silence, his deep voice low, quiet in the quiet room. “And what do you feel?”
The truth. It came out of her like water upwelling from a spring. Unstoppable, real. “Desire,” she whispered. “Back.”
He stood up so suddenly the chair toppled over, skittering to the wall unnoticed as he rounded the small table without letting go of her hand. He used her hand in his to pull her up and out and straight into his arms and his mouth came down on hers and the world spun around her and she was lost.
CHAPTERTEN
Desire.
Christ, she called it desire but it was more than that. Whole worlds and universes more. Something bigger, something unfathomably greater. Something completely outside his ken.
