After Midnight by Diana Palmer Page A

me.”
    â€œI’m barely six foot two,” he told her. “You’re a shrimp, that’s why I seem big to you.”
    â€œWatch your mouth, buster, I’m not through growing yet,” she said pertly, cutting her sparkling eyes up at him.
    He chuckled. “Smart mouth.”
    â€œSmart, period, thank you so much.”
    â€œNow that we both know you won’t sleep with me, can we hold hands? Mine are cold.”
    â€œI might have suspected there would be an ulterior motive,” she mentioned. But all the same, she took her left hand out of her pocket and let him fold it under his warm fingers.
    â€œYou aren’t cold,” she protested.
    â€œSure I am. You just can’t tell.” His fingers tightened, and he smiled at the faint flush on her cheeks as the exercise began to tell on her. “You ninety-seven-pound-weakling,” he chided. “Can’t you keep up with me?”
    â€œNormally I could run rings around you,” she said heavily. “But I’m getting over a bout of pneumonia.”
    He stopped abruptly, scowling. “Idiot! You don’t need to be out in this early morning chill! Why didn’t you say something?”
    His concern made her heart lift. “It’s been a week since I got out of bed,” she assured him.“And I haven’t been sitting home idle all that time.”
    â€œYou haven’t done much exercising, either, have you?”
    â€œNot really,” she admitted. The help she’d given with the Spoleto Festival had involved a lot of telephone calls and assistance that she could give sitting down. Her strength was still lagging behind her will.
    â€œWhat a waif and stray it is, and it hasn’t much of a mind at times, either,” he murmured softly.
    She started to take offense when he moved suddenly and swept her into his warm, strong arms. He turned and started walking back the way they’d come.
    Nikki was totally breathless with surprised delight. It was the first time in her life that she’d experienced a man’s strength in this way. She wasn’t sure she liked the feeling of vulnerability it gave her, and that doubt was in her eyes when they met his at close range.
    â€œI can see the words right there on the tip of your tongue,” he said softly, his deep voice faintly accented and very tender as he smiled at her. “But don’t say them. Put your arms around me and lie close to my chest while I carry you.”
    Shades of a romantic movie, she thought wildly. But the odd thing was that she obeyed him without question, without hesitation. There was a breathylittle sigh escaping from her. She dropped her eyes to his throat, where thick hair showed in the opening, and she felt a sweet swelling in her body as he drew her relentlessly closer. Her face ended up in the hot curve of his throat, her arms close around his neck.
    â€œNikki,” he said in a rough, husky voice, and his arms suddenly contracted, crushing her soft breasts against the wall of his chest as he turned toward the car.
    It was no longer a teasing or tender embrace. Her nails were biting into his shoulders as he walked, and she felt the closeness in every single pore of her body. Her breasts had gone hard-tipped, her heart was throbbing. Low in her stomach, she felt a heat and hunger that was totally without precedent.
    â€œOh, baby,” he whispered suddenly, and she felt his open mouth quite suddenly on the softness of her throat where her tank top left it bare to her collarbone.
    She closed her eyes with a shaky gasp. The wind blew her hair around her face and cooled the heat in her cheeks. He was warm and strong and he smelled of spices. She wanted him to strip her out of her clothes and put his warm, hard mouth on her breasts and her belly and the inside of her thighs. She wanted him to put her down on the beach and make love to her under the sky.
    With a total disregard for safety and sanity,