Tender Stranger Read Online Free Page A

romantic.”
    He shook his head slowly. “No,” he said quietly. “Occasionally I need a woman, the oblivion of sex. But that’s all it ever is. Sex, with no illusions.”
    Her eyes searched his, reading embarrassing things in them. “There’s a reason,” she said softly, knowingly.
    He nodded. “I was twenty-four. She was twenty-eight, wildly experienced, and as beautiful as a goddess. She seduced me on the deck of a yacht, and after that I’d have died for her. But she was expensive, and I was besotted, and eventually I sold everything I had to buy her loyalty.” His eyes darkened, went cold with memory and rage as Dani watched. “I’d helped buy my parents a small home for their retirement with money I…earned,” he added, not mentioning how he’d earned the money. “And I even mortgaged that. The bank foreclosed. My father, who’d put his life savings into his part of the house, died of a heart attack soon afterward. My mother blamed me for it, for taking away the thing he’d worked all his life for. She died six months later.”
    He’d picked up a handful of sand and was letting it fall slowly onto the beach while she stared at his handsome profile and knew somehow that he’d never told this story to another living soul.
    “And the woman?” she asked gently.
    The sand made a small sound, and his palm flattened on it, crushing it. “She found another chump…” He glanced at Dani with a cold laugh. “One with more money.”
    “I’m sorry,” she said inadequately. “I can understand that it would have made you bitter. But—”
    “But all women aren’t cold-hearted cheats?” he finished for her, glaring. “Aren’t they?”
    “The one boyfriend I ever had was two-timing me with another girl,” she said.
    “What a blazing affair it must have been,” he said with cold sarcasm.
    She searched his face, seeing beneath the anger to the pain. “I loved him,” she said with a gentle smile. “But he was more interested in physical satisfaction than undying devotion.”
    “Most men are,” he said curtly.
    “I suppose so.” She sighed. She rolled over onto her back and stretched. “I’ve decided that I like being alone, anyway. It’s a lot safer.”
    He eased onto his side, watching her. “You disturb me,” he said after a minute.
    “Why? Because I’m not experienced?” she asked.
    He nodded. “My world doesn’t cater to inexperience. You’re something of a curiosity to me.”
    “Yes. So are you, to me,” she confessed, studying him blatantly.
    He brushed the hair away from her face with strong, warm hands, callused hands that felt as if he’d used them in hard work. She liked that roughness against her soft skin. It made her tingle and ache with pleasure. He looked down at the bodice of the bathing suit, watching her reaction. The material was thin and the hard tips of her breasts were as evident as her quickened breathing.
    She started to move her arms, to cover herself, but he caught her eyes and shook his head.
    “That’s as natural as breathing,” he said in a voice that barely carried above the sound of the surf. “It’s very flattering. Don’t be ashamed of it.”
    “I was raised by a maiden aunt,” she told him. “She never married, and I was taught that—”
    He pressed his thumb over her mouth, a delicious contact that made her want to bite it gently. “I can imagine what you were taught.” He let his dark gaze drop to her mouth and studied it slowly as he touched it, watching it tremble and part. “I like your mouth, Dani. I’d like to take it with mine.”
    The thought was exciting, wildly exciting. Her gaze went involuntarily to his hard, chiseled mouth. His upper lip was thin, the bottom one wide and sensuous. She would bet he’d forgotten more about kissing than she’d ever learned.
    “Have you been kissed very much?” he asked.
    “Once or twice,” she said lightly, trying to joke.
    “French kisses?” he provoked.
    Her body was going crazy.