If You Dare Read Online Free Page B

simple sort of wonder completely at odds with the love-blushed woman who stood there, practically naked, her swimsuit strap around her elbow.
    But then she turned her lips in that sexy, challenging smile of hers and winked before speaking. “You keep making all these promises. If you don’t deliver, I’m going to be one very sorry lady.”
    He could only shake his head in appreciation. She was absolutely incredible.
    “Don’t you worry about the delivery. I can guaran-damn-tee you, tonight is going to leave us both more than a little shaken. But it’ll be worth every second.”

    Cordelia watched him walk away and silently congratulated herself for not hyperventilating. For not erupting in flames right this instant.
    That explosive, incinerating kiss was completely beyond her fantasies. She was in trouble here. The kind of trouble you saw in movies and read about in books.
    The kiss your ass goodbye, Sugar, you made the wrong move kind of trouble only Tom Clancy, John Grisham or Suzanne Brockmann could write her out of.  
    But they weren’t here. Joe Sterling was. And he as so far out of her league he wasn’t even in the same galaxy. She was so going down for the count.
    She could not do this. Could not. Could not. No way. Huh-uh.
    That wasn’t a kiss. That was an out of body sexual experience like none other. And he’d barely even touched her.
    Dear lord, what had she been thinking taunting him? Taunting him! Oh God. She was not an Irene kind of girl.  
    This crazy, impulsive, sassy mouthed person who winked for God’s sake, wasn’t her. And he’d see right through her after the party. She was so sunk.
    With shaking hands she pulled up the strap on her swimsuit and tried to straighten her sarong before moving to fluff her hair.  
    Oh God. She was fluffing her hair. She, Cordelia Renee Lewis, the girl voted most likely to live in Taylor, Texas, population six thousand, forever, was fluffing her hair, trying to hide the fact that her nipples were pebbled rock hard under an entirely too small white bikini top.
    Oh Lord.
    Cordelia heard the door open, heard a loud call of, “Hey what’s up, man? What took so long?” and tried to remember all of Irene’s advice.
    One week of fantasy. That’s all this was. Mind numbing, sensory blowing, all out free for all instant gratification in the city that sin built.
    She could do this.
    But first she had to remind her still rubbery legs how to work.

    Joe stood behind the grill and tried to keep his mind on the fact that burgers and blackened didn’t belong in the same sentence. But every time he started to focus on the grill, Cordelia would walk by and, hot damn, he was filled with thoughts of a whole different kind of fire. The kind that had nothing to do with cooking and everything to do with three alarm, down and dirty, let’s spend all night at this sex.
    And those thoughts were a hell of a lot more interesting than the burgers.  
    Unfortunately, right this minute, the crew attending the party wanted their food and they wanted it now.
    He flipped one barely charcoaled patty over and watched as Cordelia punched an inflated beach ball over a head and into someone else’s hands. Nearby, a model perfect woman with sun-bronzed skin wore a suit that left little to the imagination. She looked like every other blond bombshell the guys brought around, and next to Cordelia, she was barely noticeable.
    Something about the whiteness of Cordelia’s skin, the flawlessness of it drew his eyes. And the way she kept the skirt wrapped around her waist, a teasing knot to the side just begging for his fingers to reach out and…
    His friend Keith interrupted his thoughts. “Hey man, you’re burning the burgers again. Move over and I’ll show you how it’s done.”
    Usually, those were fighting words. Their gatherings had few rules, but two that went unspoken because of their universality were plain and simple. You didn’t get between a man and his grill or a man and his