Read What a Woman Wants (A Manley Maids Novel) for Free Online Page A

to his day because there was no way was he opting for an indoor barnyard in his soon-to-be Hideaway Hills Resort.
    But then the skies opened up, unleashing sheets of rain worthy of Noah and
his
menagerie.
    “Oh no!” Livvy flew off the door, rounded the animals up, then glared at him. “Well?”
    “Well what?” He hadn’t moved. Nor did he intend to.
    “Aren’t you going to help me?”
    “Help you what?”
    “Get them inside.”
    “Inside? I thought we just decided to empty out the barn.”
    “But they’re getting wet.”
    “They’re animals. They’re used to it.”
    “No they’re not. And I don’t want them to get sick. Come on.” She nudged the pig out of the way and yanked on the door.
    Sean grabbed it before it moved more than two inches from the frame. “You’re not letting them back in.”
    Spiked, sooty lashes framed spitting gold eyes. “Yes I am.”
    “No you’re not. They’re animals. Barnyard animals.”
    “Who don’t have a barn. Now quit arguing and move!”
    For a tiny thing she sure could pack a wallop. Her hip clipped him at mid-thigh and he actually had to sidestep to stay upright.
    That was the break she needed. Just that quick, she grabbed hold of both door handles and flung them open. Animals stampeded inside.
    Shit. You’d think they’d never seen rain before.
    He could no longer say the same for the Aubusson. The only saving grace was that it’d already been ruined—as the furniture was now being. Oh, hell.
    Thunder rattled the panes of the French doors.
    “I better close those,” Livvy, the den mother, said, pushing off one of the wingback chairs.
    “Why bother?” Sean slicked his drenched hair off his forehead with one hand and grabbed her arm with the other. “The floor’s already soaked. Besides, you wanted a barn. Now you’ve got one.” With the décor of Versailles.
    She had a finger already pointing his way, but, mid-turn, the words got stuck in her mouth. She looked at him, then at herself, then at all the animals, and promptly started laughing.
    Which got him laughing.
    But with her bedraggled skirt plastered against her legs and the wet, gauzy, practically transparent fabric doing the same to her body, laughter died in Sean’s throat.
    It was replaced by something much heavier. Expectant. He couldn’t look away.
    She looked delectable. Rain tracked along her collarbone, a few drops pooling in the hollow before they slipped down her chest beneath the thin fabric of her camisole. Sean traced that line with his eyes, his breath growing shallower with every freckle he counted.
    Livvy’s laughter slid away and Sean met her gaze.
    The vulnerability he’d seen before had been replaced by something . . . more.
    He
wanted
more.
    He didn’t understand why; she wasn’t his usual type. But it didn’t matter. When Livvy looked at him like she was,
looking
like she did, it didn’t matter. He wanted her.
    He took a step toward her. A slight one, but her lashes flickered and her lips, slicked with rainwater, formed a small
O
. He wanted to lick it off.
    So he did.
    Somehow she was in his arms, their bodies touching, their breath mingling, her curls skimming his chest at the V of his shirt, and his tongue slid out to taste her lips. Just a whisper of a touch, but there was no hesitancy on her part. Her breath caught just enough for the small opening he needed and he deepened the kiss.
    Thunder crashed through the room—or maybe that was the blood rushing through his veins as his body turned to fire. He wrapped his arms over her shoulders, pressing the impossibly small curve of her waist against him, her breasts—her wet, tight breasts—crushed against his chest, and he couldn’t help but groan as her hips moved against him.
    God, she turned him on and he didn’t care if she knew it. Because really . . . how could she not?
    He slid one hand into the tangle of curls he wanted to see spread all over the bed pillows upstairs, and held her head at just the