Donovan's Bed: The Calhoun Sisters, Book 1 Read Online Free Page A

conscious of the whispers and knowing looks that surrounded them. She looked from his extended hand to his face, wondering if she dared give in to temptation and dance with the devil.
    She wanted to dismiss Donovan as just an ornery man who thrived on annoying her, but tonight she couldn’t help noticing how different he was from every other man in Burr. In his black coat and tie and silver embroidered waistcoat, he was dashing enough to make any woman’s heart beat faster. His face had too much character to be called handsome and too many sharp edges to fit the definition of conventional good looks. But Donovan was hardly conventional.
    Still, he had tried to blend in by at least appearing the gentleman. His overlong black hair normally had an unruly curl to it, but tonight he had tamed it by slicking it back. As he smiled, that dimple appeared in his left cheek.  
    All in all, he looked very civilized for a wolf mingling with a bunch of sheep.
    “The longer you wait, the more they’ll talk,” he said as she continued to waver. “Are you afraid?”
    “Certainly not!”
    His lips parted in a wicked smile that weakened her knees and enticed her to explore the forbidden. “Then we dance.”
    He pulled her into his arms before she could protest. Mere inches separated them, and she could swear that she felt the heat of his body envelop her. The aura of danger that surrounded him both attracted and frightened her, and the surety with which he held her made her feel both safe and captured. She closed her eyes, her body warming and responding in a way she hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
    “For a woman who’s been trying to get me alone for almost a year, you sure don’t talk too much.”
    Her eyes popped open, and she jerked her annoyed gaze up to his. “What a ridiculous thing to say. You know good and well I want to interview you for the Chronicle .”
    “I do?” His lazy tone could not disguise the insinuation behind the words.
    “Mr. Donovan, you have a way of making an innocent situation sound perfectly indecent.”
    He shrugged, apparently unfazed by her displeasure. “What else is a man supposed to think when a woman chases him like a hound after fresh meat?”
    Her cheeks heated. “You, sir, are not a nice man.”
    “True enough.” He dipped his head close to her ear and whispered, “But you seem to be the only one who knows it.”
    His breath caressed her neck, prickling her flesh with awareness. She moved her head, and he straightened. The look in his dark eyes was edgy and predatory. There was a quiet power seething beneath his deceptively harmless veneer, though his hold on her remained gentle.
    “People are curious about you,” she said, trying to get the conversation back on track.
    “Good. Let them stay that way.”
    She blinked at his brusqueness, but forged ahead. “I mean, look at you. You dress like a gambler—”
    “I’ve done some.”
    “Oh, really?” But not professionally, she thought. He wasn’t glib enough, not smooth enough and certainly not polished enough. He lacked the easy sophistication of a man used to blending into social situations—a skill a gambler would have developed out of necessity.
    She could imagine Jack Donovan as a lawman, a miner or even an outlaw. He had an element of danger, a sense of self-containment, found with that sort of solitary occupation, but there was no way he had ever been a gambler.
    Which left the question of where his wealth had come from.  
    At her speculative glance, he laughed. “Miss Calhoun, you’re like a tick under my skin about my past.”
    “Human nature, Mr. Donovan. When a man like you comes to town, flaunting money the way you have, people are bound to talk.”
    “Flaunting money? And what do you mean, a man like me?” The cool, self-possessed Donovan actually seemed disconcerted.
    “You’re an eligible, wealthy bachelor whose existence seems to have begun the day you came to Burr. You spend money like it’s water,