Free Tempting Taine by Kate Silver Page B

back of his hand.   “One of the big pines has blown over.   Nothing can get through.   You're stuck here tonight.”
    “You’re joking.”
    “No.   I’m not,” he said, and he wiped the sleeve of his sweater over his forehead to wipe off the moisture.   “I wish I was, but I’ve just been to check it out and there’s no way the men can move it before morning.”
    She was hit with the sudden realization of what that meant to her.   If the road was truly blocked, she was stuck on the wrong side of it and she would have to stay in the Hunter household for the night.   She would be forced to share a house with Taine – with the man who despised her, but who still wanted her in his bed.   A sudden fit of terror struck her at the prospect and she jumped at the only glimmer of rescue she could think of.   “Can’t they chainsaw it up tonight?”
    “In the dark?”   He shook his head, looking disgusted that she had even made the suggestion.   “You may be used dealing with the kind of man you can wind around your little finger and who will let you get your own way all the time,” he sneered, “but there are definite limits to my tolerance.   Even if there were a real emergency, I’d think pretty hard about asking the farmhands to help chainsaw it up in the dark in weather like this.   It’s too dangerous.”
    She bowed her head, ashamed that her desire to get home had momentarily made her so selfish and thoughtless.   She did not want anyone put to such trouble or, heaven help her, injured, just because of her impatience to get away from Taine.   “So, where does that leave me,” she asked, as brightly as she could, when she lifted her head again.   She was afraid that she already knew the answer.  
    “You’ll have to stay here tonight.”
    She could hardly argue the necessity even though it was the last thing she wanted to do.   Well, not quite the last thing – sleeping in the house, even with Taine in it, was preferable to being tossed outside to sleep in the cowshed.   “Do you have a spare bed?   Or will it have to be the sofa?”
    He gave her a calculating look through hooded eyes.   “It’s cold outside, and my bed is plenty big enough for two.”
    She shook her head.   The cowshed was starting to look more attractive with every word he spoke.   “It’d be a cold day in hell before I took you up on that offer.”
    “You never used to mind sharing my bed.   Except of course that it wasn’t a bed back then, was it?   It was a blanket on the grass or the back of my old truck – you weren’t particularly fussy, as I recall.   Sharing my bed would be a step up for you.”
    Her hands curled into fists at her side with the effort it took for her not to respond physically to his taunting.   “Very funny.   Besides, in case you haven't noticed, I'm not seventeen any longer.   I have standards.”
    “Let me guess - they don't include me?"   He gave a bark of unamused laughter.   "I guess it’ll have to be the spare bedroom, then.   Come on up.   I’ll show you around.”
    With reluctant feet, she followed him up the wide staircase and onto the landing at the top.   It seemed strange that this house, the house that Taine had grown up in, was a complete mystery to her.   She had once known Taine so well – every thought that went through his mind, all his hopes and dreams, not to mention every inch of his tanned golden body, but some parts of his life had definitely been off-limits.   At the time, she had been so besotted with him, she had hardly noticed.
    He had seldom mentioned his family life, for one.   After her first disastrous visit to meet his parents, she had not exactly wanted to return in a hurry, and very shortly after that, she had put it out of her power ever to return.   Apart from the dining room and lounge, and the downstairs powder room, she had never seen any of the house he lived in.  
    He pushed open the door to reveal a dark blue and very