Free Cupid, Texas [1] Love at First Sight by Lori Wilde Page A

skin.
    “Are you all right?” he asked.
    “I’m fine,” she mumbled, abandoning her attempt to walk normally and shambled up the path as quickly as she could, her Keds clutched in the fingers of her right hand, the AFO cradled against her right elbow.
    His footsteps echoed behind her, both scary and thrilling at the same time. She was having trouble adjusting to the fact that she was a different Natalie from the one who’d awakened this morning. That Natalie had never felt . . . this . . . this . . .
    She had no word for what this was.
    Natalie gulped, feeling trapped, challenged, and five hundred other inexplicable things she couldn’t even name. Irritated with herself, she clenched her jaw. She was not normally like this, weak-kneed over a handsome man. Then again, she’d never felt this kind of chemistry. If she had, she’d have surrendered her virginity eons ago.
    “Have you had breakfast?” she asked, going all B&B hostess on him. That was the way to handle this situation until she could make sense of her feelings. Keep it strictly professional.
    “No.”
    The back door flew open at her light touch, swinging inward with a loud creak.
    “That latch is suspect,” Dade observed.
    “It’s an old house.”
    He paused to look at the door. “It has a skeleton key lock.”
    “So?” She shrugged.
    “This wouldn’t keep out a cat, much less a cat burglar. You need a proper lock on your back door,” he chided.
    “We don’t have much crime in Cupid.”
    “Everywhere has crime.”
    “If there’s something in here that someone wants that badly, they’re welcome to it.”
    “What if they want your life?” he asked.
    “My, you’re just a little ray of sunshine, aren’t you?”
    “I could install a lock for you. Wouldn’t take me long.”
    “I’m not worried about it,” she told him, and then called out, “Pearl, we have another guest for breakfast. One who apparently has a thing for locks.”
    “Buffet is still out,” Pearl hollered back amid the clanging of pots and pans.
    “Just go through there.” Anxious to separate herself from him, Natalie pointed to the door leading into the formal dining room. “Help yourself. I’ll be back in a minute.”
    He looked at her with his eyelids at half-mast, a lazy, bedroom expression that constricted her throat. His eyelashes were the color of ink and surprisingly long, softening his devilish eyes. “Don’t rush your shower on my account.”
    Her pulse, which had started to settle down a little, kicked up into a fresh gallop.
    The barest hint of a grin tipped the corners of his mouth. She had the most insane urge to ask him to join her in the shower. This was nonsense, but she couldn’t shake the thought of the two of them in her shower, steamy water sluicing down their naked bodies, her head tossed back, his mouth nibbling her throat, his hand—
    Stop it!
    Her body flushed hot all over. She had never had a particularly strong sex drive, which was one of the reasons she’d been satisfied without lovers to meet her needs. A vibrator did the trick.
    Until now.
    Feeling self-conscious, she clumped up the stairs to her bedroom, determined to tamp down the onslaught of hormones surging through her bloodstream, but her will deserted her. Aching, demanding need pushed low into her belly, building pressure and heat.
    Why was she reacting this way? Why now? Why this man? She didn’t want to feel this way.
    Oh, you liar!
    No man had ever ignited her the way he did with nothing more than a sultry look.
    For years, she’d secretly felt a little superior to women who fell willy-nilly into love with first one man and then another. She had seen loving too easily as a weakness, a character flaw, while she smugly clung to her virtue. Now, she’d been infected with it too, consumed by an overwhelming physical need to merge with Dade Vega. It worried her to realize that this man could quickly become an obsession. Payback. Karma.
    Cold shower. She needed a