Tempt Me Read Online Free Page A

Toussaint a question for her mother. He’d been terse and monosyllabic, but by the time he’d hung up Angelique’s body had reacted as though he’d touched her. Caressed her.
    BD huffed out a sound of agreement. “You don’t have to tell me. Annemarie Toussaint is a powerful priestess. The Loa watch over her... and everyone she loves.”
    The two men stared at each other in tense silence. Why did BD’s words sound like both a warning and a peace offering? And why, Angelique sighed, did she still feel as if she were missing a crucial bit of information that everyone else knew about but her?
    Michelle entered the kitchen, Ben following close behind her. “Gabriel, you’re here.”
    He wasn’t smiling as his sister embraced him, though it was obvious he tried. Angelique noticed his awkwardness as his hands lifted to pat his sister’s back. This was not a man used to affection.
    What a sad thought.
    Ben saved him, pulling Michelle back against him and reaching out to shake Gabriel’s hand. “Hey, brother, been hearing the rumor you were back in town. Glad to see it’s true. And I’m happy you decided to accept our invitation.”
    Gabriel nodded, and Angelique held her breath as his gaze met hers. Just like before, the other people in the room disappeared until all she could see, all she knew, was him. Why did he affect her like this?
    His sparkling green eyes narrowed, unblinking for a long, breathless moment. Two. Then he looked away, responding to Ben without acknowledging her presence.
    “Yes, well, I won’t be here for long.”
    Ben frowned, releasing Gabriel’s hand slowly, his expression thoughtful. Suspicious.
    An uneasy silence settled over the kitchen, and Gabriel shifted, as if uncomfortable with all the attention.
    She hoped he was uncomfortable, the jerk. Did he learn rude from his father’s side of the family? This was the third time he’d dismissed her in as many days. She’d spent the week fantasizing about the man, and he’d never even said hello.
    It was hard on a girl’s ego to go so instantly gaga over someone who wouldn’t give you the time of day. Yet something about his almost defiant avoidance of her made her doubt its veracity.
    It wasn’t just her he was steering clear of; that much was apparent to her now. He seemed intent on keeping everyone off-kilter. On pushing them all away. She wondered why he had bothered coming back when he clearly didn’t want to be here. Wondered what it would take to get him to react to her.
    Angelique was no masochist. It wasn’t her style to chase after hopeless cases. She had a healthy dose of self-confidence to go along with her Rousseau pride. She knew men liked what they saw when they looked at her, what they noticed. That though they had often commented on her long, russet-brown curls, her dimples, and her “kissable” mouth, that wasn’t—in their eyes—her appeal.
    It was her breasts.
    They were good breasts. Perky and proud, defying gravity despite their fullness. A fullness accentuated by her small waist and the sway of her curving hips. She wasn’t a slender, airbrushed beauty. She was real. All debate to the contrary, she’d never met a man who wouldn’t rather have a handful of natural than silicone and bone.
    She pulled her shoulders back and caught his attention shift, the muscle at his temple twitching. She had to hold in a small whoop of triumph. Despite how he was trying to ignore her, he couldn’t. Not completely. It was a start.
    “Now that the guest of honor has arrived, can we eat? The pregnant woman is hungry.” Allegra’s voice coming from the door to the dining room broke the tension, and everyone laughed and moved in her direction.
    Only one person still looked as coiled up as a cornered rattlesnake, giving off the unmistakable air of leave-me-the-hell-alone. But Angelique knew she wasn’t going to be able to.
    It wasn’t in her nature.
     
     
    “YOU SURE YOU’RE OKAY, CHER ?”
    Angelique hid her smile