Read Heartbreaker (The Warriors) for Free Online Page B

until Mother’s death. As to his mentioning me, that’s not important."
    "So you lived with her after their divorce?"
    "That’s right."
    "Here?"
    "Part of the time. I attended schools in Switzerland and England while I was growing up. Mother kept apartments in Zurich and just outside London. I enjoyed traveling with her during summer vacations and other holidays. What I never realized was that much of her restlessness was caused by pure loneliness and her fear of a premature death because of her diabetes."
    Micah stood beside her. "You don’t like to travel so much anymore, do you?"
    His insight pleased her. "Not at all. Other than a periodic trip to visit friends or for a gallery show, I stay rooted. I’m a nester at heart, and I really love Saint Thomas. It’s my home, and I couldn’t ask for a more beautiful one." Bliss inhaled deeply of the fragrant humid air currents that flowed over her before turning to study Micah’s profile. "What about you? Is there a place you particularly like, a place that gives you a feeling of belonging whenever you’re there?"
    "I used to feel that way about the Pacific Northwest, but that was a long time ago. I’ve lived a pretty transient life since the Naval Academy. In my line of work, you learn not to form any permanent ties to people or to places."
    "Sounds lonely," she observed.
    Shifting sideways, Micah extended his hands. As he reached for Bliss, his knuckles brushed across the silk–covered tips of her breasts.
    She inhaled sharply, the whispery contact paralyzing her senses for a moment. She also felt Micah’s surprise, saw the shocked stillness of his body as she stared up at him. It occurred to her that the angles and hollows of his hard–featured face appeared even more forbidding than usual. She glimpsed a stark neediness there, which seemed wholly sensual in nature.
    She managed a steadying breath, aware that she had to distance herself from him even as her nipples beaded with tension and her senses produced an image of his mouth at her breasts, his tongue and lips subjecting her to a glorious sensual torture. But she couldn’t seem to move—really didn’t even want to move—despite the frantic voice in her head that shouted one warning after another.
    "You’re wearing silk again."
    "Yes," she whispered, mesmerized by the feel of his fingertips as he traced the piping on the bodice of her nightgown. She shivered, despite the heat of his fingertips as he trailed them over the upper slopes of her full breasts.
    "And lace?"
    "Yes." Her voice resembled a sigh when he briefly dipped a fingertip into the valley between her breasts.
    "I seem to need to touch you when we’re together."
    She heard his bafflement and sensed his growing confusion. She also felt the tremor that shook him when he smoothed his fingertips over the warm skin above her breasts. After fingering the pulse that throbbed in the hollow of her throat, he curved his hands over her shoulders.
    Bliss breathed shallowly. Her insides churned, and her heart raced. She understood the reassurance he found in physical contact, but she also felt fear stir in her own heart that she might weaken in the face of his need and allow him to use her. She doubted he would intend to use her, but an absence of intent wouldn’t alter the result.
    Micah ran his hands down her arms, and then he shifted them to span her waist. His thumbs smoothed over and up her midriff, then stroked the undersides of her breasts. She felt them swell in anticipation of his touch, her nipples so sensitive, she could barely draw air into her lungs. Sensations cascaded through her. Her legs turned boneless, and she bit back the plea for greater intimacy that hovered on the tip of her tongue. As he dragged his knuckles down across her stomach and then cupped her hips, she felt a slight trembling in his hands as he drew her into his heat and hardness.
    She swayed against him, nearly shattered by the desire streaming through her even as she