Read A Touch of Silk for Free Online Page A

everyone else back inside.
    “You’re welcome.”
    Quinn peered down into her face and damned if little Miss Too-Cool-for-School didn’t look nervous. The tip of her tongue darted out to wet her upper lip. Was her gesture an unconscious invitation to kiss her? God, he hoped so, because he wanted to do that more than anything in the world.
    “Uh—” she took a step backward “—perhaps we should go now.”
    “Why?” His body was so very aware of hers. “Are you frightened?”
    She forced a laugh. “Frightened of what? Heights?”
    “Of this.”
    Then, taking them both by surprise, he caught her upper arms in his hands, raised her to her toes and kissed her the way he’d been longing to kiss her since the moment he’d caught her in his arms on the airplane.
    She yielded. Accepted him with ready acquiescence. Complied by parting her lips and letting him slip his tongue in deep to taste the honeyed, warm recesses of her mouth. Languidly his tongue glided against hers.
    Lust, swifter, more vehement than anything he’d ever experienced, exploded inside him. And it was just a damned kiss.
    His gut clenched hard. He could only imagine how his hardness sliding into her would feel, her slender arms entwined around his neck, her luscious tush cupped in his large palms.
    He was not the kind of guy to sit idle on the sidelines. When he saw something he wanted, he went after it. But even he had never moved so fast or wanted anyone so strongly. He had no more control than a moose in rut. That’s what this woman did to him.
    Had he shocked her with his boldness? Had he indeed moved too quickly?
    But no, she moaned softly and leaned into him. Quinn swallowed the sound, tilting her head back, threading his fingers through her hair. The softness of those silken strands was in sharp contrast to the hardness building inside him.
    Incredible. Simply incredible.
    He forgot that she was practically engaged. He forgot that he didn’t steal other men’s women. He forgot that she was out of his league. He forgot everything except how wonderful she felt, how good she tasted.
    Kay held her breath, dazed and ashamed. Freemonts did not act like this! They didn’t kiss strangers in public. They did not lose control. They did not succumb to wanton lust.
    Good. Good. Good. Good.
    She was no longer behaving like a Freemont, and it was liberating beyond description.
    But what was she getting herself into?
    Quinn, the Alaskan man who smelled of wilderness and tasted of mangoes and key lime pie, was giving her the most possessive kiss of her life. Branding her with his tongue, searing her with his passion.
    She’d never experienced anything like it, certainly not with Lloyd or with that guy from college. Her heart did a triple backflip before taking on a frantic, galloping rhythm of thrill and response.
    Up was down, down was up. Nothing made sense anymore, but it felt so right.
    Was she indeed supposed to begin her journey of self-discovery with this man? Or was she kidding herself? Using his willingness as an excuse for acting out her long-hidden desires?
    Splaying a hand on Quinn’s chest, Kay thought to push him away, but instead, she let her hand rest there, feeling his heartbeat and marveling that it pounded as forcefully as her own.
    Even through his flannel shirt, she could feel his muscled flesh. In spite of the cold, he felt blisteringly hot and wonderfully solid against her palm. She realized he was coiled as tense as a snake waiting to strike. The comparison alarmed her. Did she really believe he might be dangerous? What was she doing? She didn’t know this man.
    But that was rigid Freemont thinking, and more than anything she wanted to break free of the constraints of her old thought patterns. She wanted to stop berating herself, wanted to take some risks, inhale the danger, embrace the challenge, not fear it. She wanted to be fully alive. She wanted to replace fantasies with reality.
    And Quinn was serving up huge helpings of