Read Risk the Night for Free Online Page B

around.
    He lifted his mouth, and everything went sideways, as her feet left
the ground, and she had the sudden, crazy fear that he was going to throw her
over the balcony, down four stories to be smashed against the pavement.
    A moment later they were out of the rain, and he was carrying her
through her candlelit apartment, the scent of something rich on the air. She
could hear Charles Aznavour on the stereo, and she
thought of Piaf.   “Non, je ne regrette rien .”   No, I regret nothing.   All the mistakes, the wrong moves, the
wrong lovers, I regret none of them.
    She wouldn’t regret this.   It made no sense, it wasn’t her, but she could no more fight it than she
could battle a tidal wave.
    He seemed to know her apartment, another impossibility.   He carried her up the two steps into
her darkened bedroom and tossed her down on the unmade bed, still covered with
the clothes she’d discarded earlier in the day.   She sat there, the flannel robe clutched tight around her,
and stared up at him.   She could
see the whiteness of his teeth as he flashed a grin, and he began unbuttoning
his soaked shirt.
    “You might want to get out of those wet clothes, ma belle ,”   he finally spoke, in Italian-accented
French, his voice not much more than a whisper in the night air.
    She couldn’t move.   Somehow her acquiescence had gotten her this far; she wasn’t sure how
much further it could take her.
    He came towards the bed, still wearing rain-splattered formal
trousers, and took some of her discarded clothes and threw them on the
floor.   And then the bed sagged
beneath him, as he knelt on the mattress and reached for the ties of the
flannel robe.
    Instinctively her hands moved to stop him, covering his, but the touch
of his hard hands was oddly more arousing.   She didn’t want him touching Drake’s robe – it didn’t
seem right or fair.
    “You’re doing this,”   he
whispered, and sensed his impatience.   “You know you are.   You
already made up your mind when you saw me on the balcony.   You came then, didn’t you?   I could see it in your eyes, in the way
your body jerked.   You already knew
you were going to take me then, didn’t you?”
    She did, but she wouldn’t admit it.   How had he known about that tiny, unbidden climax that had
hit her?   “It had nothing to do
with you,”   she said
defensively.   “ This has
nothing to do with you.   I’m simply
…”   The words trailed off, too
damning to admit.
    “Aroused?”   he
supplied.   “You were sitting there
waiting for a lover.   You had the
candles and the wine and the music.   But where was the man?”   His
voice was low and persuasive.
    “I don’t need a man.”
    She could see his smile quite clearly now as her eyes grew accustomed
to the murky darkness.   “You don’t
need anything or anyone, do you?   I
think that’s what draws me to you.   You just don’t give a fuck.   But you will.”   He leaned
forward, putting his mouth against her ear, and she shivered in reaction.   “You will give a fuck, won’t you?”   he whispered, his breath hot against
her.   He bit her earlobe, and she
felt a jolt of pure, animal response.   She closed her eyes, knowing she should fight it, but he’d untied the
robe, and the night air was hitting her skin.   He pushed the soft flannel off her shoulders, down her arms,
and he was looking at her, at the plain white underwear she was wearing, at the
voluptuous curves that dieting couldn’t help.
    He slide his long fingers under white bra straps and began to pull
them down her arms.   “Denial,”   he said with a soft laugh.   “You knew I was coming and still you
dress in a nun’s underwear.   A
nun’s, or a virgin’s.   What does
your lover think about this schoolgirl stuff?”
    Her lover.   She could see
Drake’s handsome, earnest face.   She could see it above her, his expression set in rigid lines when he
came.   The memory should stop her,
make