a-soft-place-to-fall by Rakhibul hasan (free e books to read .TXT) 📖

naked on the floor next to the sofa. He flipped onto his back, cushioned by the pile of discarded clothes, and pulled her on top of him. She straddled his hips and his slick erection pressed against her cleft. She stroked him with her hand, velvet on steel, how long had it been too long too long. . .

Her breasts were full and beautiful. Her nipples, deep rose set against the alabaster of her skin. Her wild mane of hair brushed his chest as she leaned forward to kiss the flat plane of his belly. His erection leaped to life between them and she laughed softly but did nothing more. He wanted her to ride him, to pull him deep inside her body and ride him hard. He wanted to see her face when she came, see the look of wonder in her dark blue eyes, hear the sounds she made deep in her throat when it happened. She was wet. He could feel her dampness against his belly and thighs. His hands clasped her hips and he rocked with her rhythm, his own desire growing hotter and more urgent by the second when he realized, with devastating clarity, that he was totally unprepared.

Her body was supple, moving above him with heart-stopping grace. He wanted her more than he wanted his next breath but some things were non-negotiable.

"Annie." Her name seemed to hover in the charged air between them.

She struggled to bring him into focus. She felt drugged, heavy with longing. "I didn't plan this," he said.

Of course he hadn't planned this. Neither had she. How could you plan spontaneous combustion?

"Protection," he said. "You need to be protected." Another pause. "You're not on the pill, are you?"

Reality and magic didn't mix. Annie felt like someone had poured a bucket of iced water over her head. "No," she said, feeling naked for the first time. "I'm not." She wanted to tell him that it really didn't matter because in almost twenty years of marriage she had never once been pregnant, but the words wouldn't come. That was part of her old life and she wanted it to stay there.

The silence between them was deep and profound. She wanted to gather up her clothes and run back to her cats and her cottage and fit herself back into her old life but it was too late. His grasp on her hips tightened and he inched her forward, sliding her up his chest in a way that made her feel like she was about to burst into flame. She could feel his moist hot breath between her legs.

"Sam?" She sounded hesitant, a little fearful. And the truth was, she was both of those things and more.

"Let yourself go, Annie." He didn't sound hesitant and he didn't sound fearful. He sounded like a man whose hunger matched her own. "There's more than one way to love a woman."

His lips brushed her inner thighs. A thousand reasons why this shouldn't be happening battled with the powerful lure of desire. She didn't do things like this . . . she wasn't a very sensual woman . . . oh God what he was doing with his tongue . . . or maybe she was . . . she'd never had the chance to find out . . . his hair felt like silk against her inner thighs . . . nobody not even the man she had loved had ever made her want to slip away from reality and vanish into a world where the senses ruled . . . wasn't it supposed to be about love . . . that's what she had been taught . . . but you couldn't love someone you'd just met . . . not even if he looked at you like you were someone to be cherished . . .

not even if he had saved your life . . . it wasn't about love . . . it couldn't be . . . she was getting confused . . . don't stop . . . there . . . yes yes . . . love was just what people called it when their bones were melting and they were about to burst into flame . . . .

Giving her pleasure was the most selfish thing Sam had ever done. Her smell, her sounds, the long muscles of her thighs as she shuddered against him when she came – all of those things brought him a deeper pleasure than he had ever known before. Her deeply sensual, overwhelmingly female response to his lovemaking carried him to a place he hadn't known existed and he knew that was only the beginning. She made him feel anything was possible.

So why then was she crying softly against his shoulder as if her heart would break? He didn't know what to say. A second ago he had been invincible; now he was

reduced to stroking her hair and murmuring nonsense in her ear in an attempt to soothe her. His desire vanished in the face of something much more complicated.

Faint red marks blossomed along her inner thighs and he was filled with remorse. Had he hurt her? She was so soft and beautifully made and his passion had been veering out of control. He touched her gently, remorse filling his heart. How in hell had something so right suddenly turned into something so damn wrong?

"I'm sorry, Annie," he said, wishing they could start all over again. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

She brushed the tears from her eyes with two quick gestures and he could feel her gathering her strength around her like a shield. Those two gestures captured what little was left of his heart. He was hers for the asking and, dammit, she hadn't a clue.

Annie berated herself for letting things go too far . . . and for not letting herself go far enough. She'd had too much time to think, that was the problem. Too much time to remember who she was in the eyes of everyone in town. Annie Galloway. Kevin's wife. Claudia's daughter -in-law. Kevin's widow. Everything but Sam Butler's lover. Oh God, how she wanted to touch him, to hold him, to run her lips over every inch of his body but she couldn't move. His body ached for her. The evidence was both plain and powerful and she knew he deserved that and so much more from a woman with far less baggage.

She wasn't a wife any longer but she wasn't sure she was ready to be a lover. She felt greedy, selfish, and altogether a failure.

"Guess you're having a few second thoughts right about now," she said, trying to ease a laugh around her words. He had given her more pleasure than she had ever known and she repaid him by bursting into tears like a wronged virgin. "I promise you that the

rest of the women of Shelter Rock Cove don't start sobbing after a man makes love to them." Only the one who'd buried her husband but still hadn't quite buried her guilt.

"I don't give a damn about the rest of the women. Did I hurt you?" He sounded worried. If he was angry or disappointed, he hid it well. His touch spoke only of tenderness and concern.

She was hungry for both of those things and so much more. For comfort and a warm body next to hers and the crashing pleasures of touch and the wonder of someone who knew you right down to the marrow of your being and loved you anyway. The depth of her need terrified her. It was deeper than her loneliness, wider than the dreams she had put aside all those years ago when she realized they would never come true.

"Did I hurt you, Annie?" he repeated.

"No, no!" Why did deep emotion always bring her to tears? "It's just – I mean, it was all so – " She was stumbling over her words, suddenly more comfortable with the imperfections of her body than the longing inside her heart. She glanced down at the gold band on her left hand and felt a dizzying combination of anger and shame. "Until today there had never been anyone else."

"Not even before you married him?"

"There was no 'before.'" Kevin Galloway had always been part of her emotional landscape, from as far back as she could remember. "I suppose you think it's laughable, marrying the first boy you ever dated, but there was never any question that we were meant to be together."

"I don't think it's laughable," Sam said. "I think he was lucky."

The look she gave him was equal parts sorrow and anger and gratitude, and he wondered where one emotion ended and the other began. Marriage was a secret society with only two members, a society he'd never had time to join. The rest of the world was on the outside looking in, trying to figure out what was innately without logic or reason.

"Claudia thinks I should have stayed in the old house but I couldn't, not any longer. Two years is long enough. Once I finally –" She caught herself, horrified that the secrets she had kept locked away for so long had almost come spilling out. "I'm not really like this," she said, shaking her head in dismay. "I'm the one people go to when they have problems."

He stroked her hair with those large and beautiful hands. "And who do you go to when you have a problem, Annie Galloway?"

"Haven't you heard?" she said. "I don't have problems. I'm the one who solves them." And she knew how to solve his problem too.

He started to say something but the phone rang. They listened to it ring once, twice, four times, and he finally went in search of the cellular. The room was bathed in shadows. A cool breeze ruffled the curtains and from the kitchen Max made mournful sounds for his supper. Scraps of conversation floated toward her on the night air as he talked to one of his sisters.

" . . . not a good time, Marie . . . why don't we talk later . . . yeah, yeah . . . you pay the super . . . he'll call . . . it's not an emergency, is it . . . ask Jimmy . . . no, it's nothing to worry about . . . "

She slipped back into her black trousers and red sweater. ". . . I'm kind of busy right now, Marie . . . "

She tucked her stockings and bra into her pocket.

". . . none of your business . . . I don't ask you questions about . . . " She retrieved her shoes from under the sofa.

". . . I'll call you back . . . I don't know when, Mare . . . Jesus, why don't you . . . " She slipped out the front door and didn't look back.

Chapter Seven

Claudia's doorbell rang at eight o'clock on the dot, same as it had almost every Saturday night for the last fifteen years.

"I have a bone to pick with you, Warren Bancroft," she said as she ushered the man into her living room.

"Keep it to yourself, old woman." He gave her a hug that she endured with little grace. "You're watching your blood pressure like you should?"

"My pressure wouldn't be a problem if you would keep your meddling nose out of my family's business."

"Not that again!" He reached for the tumbler of scotch she always had waiting for him on the side table. "So I undersold the market to give Annie a break on the house. How is that meddling in your family's business?"

Oh, there were a million things she could say to him about that! Over the years he had developed the annoying habit of always being there when she needed him, a cigar-smoking guardian angel