Private Dancer by Suzanne Forster Page A

it,” she whispered again. He was so close she couldn’t breathe. She looked down, trying to escape the probing blue of his eyes. What she got for her effort was a breathtaking view of a man’s lower body, muscular and endlessly rangy. Encased in faded jeans, his thighs made her think of the weapon she carried in her purse—a steely blackjack sheathed in soft leather. And because he was standing with one hip cocked, her eyes darted irresistibly to the front of his jeans, where stress lines fanned out from material pulled too tight.
    God, what was she doing cornered in her own kitchen by a man like him? He was sex personified. And why was she letting him talk to her about such private things? Even she and Paul didn’t discuss the way they touched each other. Obviously, she hadn’t weighed the consequences of bringing Sam Nichols to her house.
    “I think it might be a good idea if you left,” she said without looking up.
    “I think it might be the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”
    She felt him touching her hair and realized he was removing her headband. As dark waves tumbled around her face, he eased his hand to her nape, gathered a fistful of locks, and slowly drew her head back, willing her to look up at him.
    “Something tells me we’re just getting started, Lace.”
    His voice was soft, but Bev could feel the force behind it. Inexplicably, she didn’t fight him. Not because she was startled into submission but because looking up and meeting his eyes had a slow, paralyzing effect on her. There was a natural gauntness in his features that spoke of hunger and dark impulses. He wasn’t the kind of man who seduced a woman for hours and hours, she realized. She couldn’t imagine him waiting patiently until a woman was ready, or putting a woman’s pleasure before his own. There was a roughness in him, a simmering promise of violence. He was a throwback to primitive times when survival depended on raw, brute strength. When Sam Nichols wanted something, he didn’t wait to be invited, he took it.
    Bev realized all that in the matter of seconds, and with the flood of information came another awareness. She wasn’t breathing. Her whole body seemed to be caught in a spasm of expectation, waiting to see what he would do next.
    “I want to touch you again,” he said. “I want to slip my hand inside your blouse and feel your breath catch.”
    He freed the top button of her blouse and Bev let out a sound that made him smile.
    She clutched at his hand. “That was a gasp! People gasp when they’re being physically assaulted. It has nothing to do with arousal.” Who was she kidding now? She was so shocked and excited she could hardly stand up. Her blood didn’t know which way to rush.
    He brought her hand to his lips and bit down gently on the knuckle of her forefinger. The message in his eyes was explicit and unmistakable. He wasn’t playing anymore. He wanted a woman and he meant to have one before he was through today. He meant to have her .
    If she didn’t stop him now, she would never summon the strength. He was too powerful, too physically overwhelming. But what disturbed her even more than the inevitability of his seduction was her own reaction. Some errant part of her wanted him to touch her again, to make her gasp.
    She tried to deny the raw excitement that was coursing through her, but she couldn’t close the floodgates. It was as though something wild and sweet inside her had been cut loose from its bonds, a trapped energy set free. She seemed to crave the dizzying, shocking feelings he evoked, as rough as he was, as primitive as he was. She didn’t understand what was happening to her, unless it was the result of being emotionally immobilized for so many years. She was being catapulted back into life, into feeling things again.
    He relaxed his fist and let her hair fall free, his fingers warm on her neck. “Have you ever made love on a kitchen countertop?”
    “No,” she said quickly, shaking his hand