Page 65 of Bedding his Innocent Mistress

She nodded. “Yes.” Again

she jabbed at his chest. “That’s strange.”

He hid a laugh. “Indeed.”

She lifted the scotch to her lips. She hadn’t drunk the liquor in a long time but she had a small taste now and didn’t hate it. She was numb, of course. Ordinarily it would have sent her retching to the bathroom. She had another mouthful.

Her companion’s eyes narrowed speculatively. “You drink like someone wanting to forget.”

“Do I?” Saphire was shocked. Was it so obvious? Or was this man just unfathomably astute? She took another sip hoping to hide the flush in her cheeks. “Maybe I just drink like someone who wants to get drunk.”

“In my experience, it’s the same thing.”

“Do you have a lot of experience with drunk women on planes, then?” She asked, blinking her eyes innocently. They were a startling shade of blue; they reminded him of the Aegean Sea on a bright summer’s day. The effect, in her pretty face with bright red lips and dark brown hair, was stunning. Literally, he had found it difficult to wrench his eyes off her.

“No.” He did his best to avoid talking to strangers, particularly beautiful, obviously troubled, hiccoughing, sobbing, champagne-sledging women such as this. And yet here he was, staring at her as though she held the secret to eternal life.

“Who are you?”

She dropped her gaze to the drink and ran her finger over the rim distractingly. “No one.”

Her reticence infuriated him. He told himself to sit back against the seat and ignore her, but how could he? She was the one drinking like a soldier but the intoxication was wrapping right around him. He cradled his scotch without bringing it to his lips. “No one, huh?”

“Why do you care?” She snapped, squeezing her eyes shut and letting out a shaky breath. It smelled of scotch. Her eyelashes were the longest he’d ever seen. He wondered, briefly, if they were fake, but immediately discounted the notion. There was nothing fake about this woman. From her inky hair and pearly complexion to those full, cherry-red lips and perfect breasts that were pushed up to reveal a heaving cleavage, she was all-woman and all-real.

His eyes were drawn to the creamy color of her décolletage and lower still to the round orbs that would be more than a handful, even for him. Her nipples were peaking against the fabric. He wanted to touch them. To touch her.

The certainty arrested his thoughts like a blade.

What the hell had gotten into him?

His eyes flashed to her face and he caught her, startled and aware, her lips parted and her cheeks flushed. She’d seen his lazy inspection and she’d understood. Attraction was a flame that burst between them. Desire unfurled in his gut.

“What?” She whispered, though she knew. She knew what he was thinking. She knew what he wanted. And the knowledge was a lightning bolt of much-needed confidence to her bruised ego. This man, this gorgeous, handsome stranger, was attracted to her.

Stuff her idiot husband, who made calm, sensible love to her every few weeks. This man was wild and untamed, she could tell just by looking at him, and he wanted her!

Without alcohol, she probably wouldn’t have realized, and she certainly never would have acted on the feeling. But now, rejected by the two people she was closest to on earth, pushed out by her best friend and her husband, she sought the flattery and attention of a man she knew nothing about.

His validation had become, instantly, desperately, essential to her being.

“Do you want to sleep with me?” The question surprised them both, but him more. Saphire knew, as she breathed the words out huskily, that she was seeking a path that might remove some of the pain her husband had inflicted. Surely if she slept with someone else, as he had Anita, she would begin to feel better.

Two wrongs sometimes made a right, didn’t they?

“Yes.” He didn’t bother denying it. Thaddeus had never been precious about sex. His predilections were well known. Consensual, adventurous, beautiful and commitment-phobic were his only requirements. And sober, which ruled this particularly stunning creature out. For the moment, at least.

She released a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. “Why?”

His laugh sent shivers dancing down her spine. “Why not?”

A frown puckered her lips. He felt his arousal jerk in response. Those lips were too perfectly formed to frown. They had far better applications and he was reasonably desperate to begin putting them to use.

“Is that what people do?” She asked after a beat. Her eyes scanned his. But alcohol was making it hard for her to focus. “Do people just fall into bed with each other because there’s no reason not to?”

There was more to her story. His first appraisal, that she was drinking to forget something, seared in his mind. “Some do,” he shrugged. Her chest was heaving as she breathed and the pain as his groin stretched against his pants was intense. He lifted a finger to her throat and traced a line from the delicately fluttering pulse point to the neckline of her dress. She shivered but didn’t pull away or rebuke him, so he let his finger drop lower, to the nipple that was hard against the flimsy fabric.

He squeezed it between his thumb and forefinger, and rolled it lightly. She made a soft moaning sound that did little to stem the intense throb of his desire. “I have a healthy appetite. When I see a woman I want, I do not hesitate to say so.”

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