Betrayal Read Online Free

looked her in the eye. “I did.”
    “Remarkable. I’m glad to see your strength is returning.” She picked up the displaced cushion and a leg, and placed them on his pile.
    “Are you not going to lecture me on losing my temper or the useless destruction of furniture?”
    “Would you like me to?”
    “Not particularly. It is just what I expected.”
    His beauty staggered her. His bright blue eyes sparked enough to light the room, and his wet hair hung around his face like a fallen angel. Try as she might to ignore it, she longed to touch him. Her stomach tightened at the idea of lying beneath the sheets with a healthy Reece Foxjohn. She forced her breath out. “I’ll leave the lectures to your mother. I see this as a good sign.”
    They finished cleaning up the mess.
    “Don’t you even want to know why I broke the chair?”
    She shrugged. “You’re angry. I do not blame you. I would be angry too.”
    He stepped closer. His breath warmed her cheek as he lifted her chin with one finger. “Since you will offer no lecture and have no plans to draw out my feelings, why not tell me why I’m so angry?”
    Swallowing to clear the lump in her throat, she gazed into those eyes. “You think you’ve lost everything. You were on top of the world, and now you have to start over again and from lower than before. You doubt you can ever recover and fear you will end up a crippled old man.”
    He gaped as he stepped back from her. His head hung, and the shoulders she’d been admiring slumped. “Dear God, Lizzy, am I that obvious?”
    Her heart ached for him, and she stepped forward. Wrapping her arms around his middle, she rested her head on his bare chest. If heaven existed, she’d found it. She imagined an eternity snuggled against his warmth. “I do not think it is quite as clear to everyone, Reece. You put up a good front at the wedding. Lillian likely saw through it, but maybe not the rest.”
    His arms remained at his sides, but his cheek brushed against the top of her head. “Lilly has known me for years. How is it you see through me so easily?”
    “You forget I have spent part of every day for a year watching you heal. Plus, I know how I would feel if I had to start training all over again. You were probably already strong when you started training to become a hunter, but I was only as strong as heavy pots and buckets filled with water can make a girl. I would be in despair if I had to do it all again.”
    One hand skimmed the center of her back. “And would you? Would you start all over again, if you lost everything you have gained in the last year?”
    She tipped her head up and stared him in the eyes. “I would do everything in my power to be better than before.”
    “And if you failed?”
    “I would pick myself up and try again until I succeeded.” Her heart tripped.
    His head lowered until full lips she’d longed for touched hers in a whispered kiss. She stiffened at the first touch and relaxed as his hand came up to cup her cheek.
    He pressed his thumb to her jaw, and when her mouth opened, he swept his tongue inside.
    The kiss reached through, around, and inside her. Rising on her tiptoes, she opened for him and matched his kisses with her own desperation. Yes, this was what she wanted, more of this man. Her imagination had not done the moment justice. She threaded her fingers through his hair, pulling it from the neat queue. Soft tresses spilled over her hands. She burned as she molded against him.
    Reece broke the kiss and stepped back, heaving breath and staring at her as if he’d never seen her before. “I should not have done that.”
    Elizabeth gasped to catch her breath. The pleasant tightening in her lower belly knotted painfully. Tears threatened to push out, but she refused to cry in front of him. “I see. Well, what is done is done. I will see you at dinner.”
    Before she could run from the room, he grabbed her arm. The temptation to hit him so hard he’d release her warred with her