Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 117377 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117377 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
She loved this: loved the feel of him, the taste of him, the scent of him . . . the absolute masculine appeal of him. And if the soft little curses and the desperation seeping into his embrace were any indications, he loved it too.
He jerked his head up unexpectedly, and she went up onto her toes, her mouth following his lips, but he moved his head back.
“God. Jesus!” He sounded shaky and groaned when he looked down into her face. “Stop looking at me like that, Tina.”
“Like what?” she asked, startled by the unfamiliar thickness of her voice.
“Like you want to tear my clothes off.” The words made her blink sleepily as reality slowly seeped its way back into her consciousness.
They were in a public place.
“Oh my God! Did anyone see?” she asked, horrified. His thumbs brushed across her cheekbones before he dropped his hands and shook his head. He stepped back, putting some space between their bodies. She didn’t need to look down to know that he was still aroused, but he stood close enough to her for his condition to not be immediately evident to anyone else.
“Not really. And it doesn’t matter if they did,” he said. “Nobody knows us here.”
He spoke too soon . . .
Chapter Eight
“Tina? Martine Jenson?” An unfamiliar voice called from their left, and they both turned their heads to stare at the couple standing hand in hand just a few meters away from them. The woman was smiling warmly; the man looked vaguely bored.
“Who the fuck are they?” he asked beneath his breath.
Tina, smiling at the couple, replied from between clenched teeth, “People from Riversend—just smile and be nice.”
She stepped away from him and placed herself deliberately in front of him. Just in case he was still sporting that massive erection.
“Oh, hello. Lia and Sam, right?”
“Yes! Oh my goodness, how lovely to run into you here. Isn’t it, Sam?”
“Yeah. Lovely,” Sam repeated, sounding not one bit sincere, and Tina bit back a grin.
They stood awkwardly for a moment before Lia’s eyes shifted speculatively to Harris.
“Hello. I’m Lia McGregor; this is my fiancé, Sam.”
“Harrison Chapman,” Harris said, stepping forward with his hand outstretched. Lia shook it enthusiastically. “Great to meet some of Tina’s friends. I’m her . . .” He floundered, obviously not quite sure where he fit into her life.
“Harris is Libby’s brother-in-law,” Tina supplied and was surprised when he sent her a glare.
“I’m also an old family friend of Tina’s,” he added, somewhat unnecessarily, in Tina’s opinion. He turned his attention to Lia’s fiancé, and the two men shook hands firmly.
“Sam Brand,” the other man said in his curt English accent, and Harris tilted his head as he assessed the shorter man.
“Security, right?”
Sam Brand’s lips quirked, his piercing blue eyes assessing Harris right back.
“Property development, right?”
Lia and Tina both rolled their eyes simultaneously, and the moment of feminine camaraderie surprised a laugh out of Tina. She rarely had moments like these with anyone other than Libby, and it made her look at the other woman in a different light. Maybe she wasn’t too bad after all.
“We saw you earlier,” Lia said to Harris, surprising Tina. “We didn’t know you were with Tina, though.”
“Yeah, saw your spectacular face-plant during the cheese-rolling thing,” Sam said with a grin.
“He was pushed.” Tina leaped to his defense with a vehemence that startled both Harris and her. Tina’s face went bright red when he sent her a quizzical look, arching his brows in surprise.
“Was he?” Sam Brand asked mildly. “Bummer.”
The two men exchanged meaningful glances, and Tina knew they were having a moment of male humor at her expense.
Ugh. See if she ever defended Harris again.
She’d blatantly lied to protect his ego. Harris was more than a little touched by that. He watched her self-consciously converse with the other woman and felt his heart swell in his chest. It was an unfamiliar emotion. His heart didn’t swell; it didn’t melt, bleed, break, or sink. It barely raced when it came to the opposite sex. It always plodded along at its normal pace, doing what it was meant to do, and doing it pretty damned well, if his last medical checkup was any indication.
His heart didn’t do romance. Relationships were ruled by body and brain.
But this was Tina, and exceptions would always be made when it came to Tina.
Consequently, his heart swelled, and it filled his chest cavity with warmth and—he tilted his head as he examined this other wholly unfamiliar sensation blending so well with the warmth—joy.
Joy, a barely remembered sensation. The last time he had felt it was when they’d been dancing to that Alicia Keys song so many years ago. In that instant of lucidity before everything had gone to hell, he had known that he’d never been as content as in that moment when he’d held her in his arms.