Free Naked Truth by Delphine Dryden Page A

Stella’s inadvertent fondling.
    “I didn’t know that Coop was a cokehead,” he said, referring once more to Stella’s ex-husband. “But if I had, I would have told you. I did think he was an asshole, but you can’t really tell somebody’s fiancée that and come away looking like the good guy.”
    “True. I wouldn’t have believed you back then anyway. He wasn’t an asshole to me. Not yet, anyway.” Stella could feel Paul’s heartbeat through the fine linen of his shirt and the silk tie. His chest was solid, muscular, warm . She was struck with a sudden desire to press her face against it and fling her arms around his waist. Paul reminded her so much of the years before her marriage, back when she was willing to risk herself with people. She wanted so much to feel like that girl again.
    “I mostly knew that he was one lucky son-of-a-bitch who didn’t deserve the girl he was marrying.”
    He had started to move his thumb in steady circles around the base of her wrist where it joined her hand, and the nerve endings were sending signals to parts of Stella’s body that had been resting quietly and bothering no one for the past five years. Now they were coming alive, and she was embarrassed to realize she was getting wet between the legs.
    Stella finished her drink and tapped it down on the bar, daring herself to meet Paul’s eyes. He looked interested.
    “I’m not married to him anymore. Let’s change the subject and have another round.”
    * * * * *
    No, clearly the fourth drink was the problem. If it hadn’t been for that fourth appletini , Stella thought, she would have been fine. In control. Smooth.
    Instead, she was leaning on one elbow on the bar and tugging at Paul’s half-undone tie with the other hand, giggling to beat the band while she contemplated how to cop another feel of his manly chest.
    “Thanks. I don’t think anybody’s ever just come out and told me my chest is manly before. And you can cop all the feels you like.”
    “Did I say that out loud?”
    “You did,” he confirmed, not seeming too bothered by it. His dark blond hair was slightly mussed, and Stella cast her mind back to recall that she had mussed it herself under the guise of pushing it back from his forehead. His hair was thick and curly and silky to the touch. It also smelled incredibly good.
    “Damn. I don’t usually drink this much.” She released his tie and picked up her drink, swirling the last few sips in the bottom of the glass.
    “What was I saying before?” Paul asked.
    “I can’t remember. I was too distracted by your manly chest.” Stella tossed back the last of the drink in one swig.
    Paul watched Stella’s pale throat move as she swallowed, trying not to think about her swallowing other things. He marveled at the translucence of her skin. He had always had a thing for redheads, but he’d forgotten just what a perfect example Stella Cooper—no, it was Stella Devlin again now, he reminded himself—was of the type. Even in the low light of the bar, her coppery hair shimmered with spun-gold highlights and he could almost see her every thought express itself on her fair skin. Blushing when she was embarrassed, angry red spots on her cheeks when she was mad, and her green eyes growing vivid and bright in their rose-and-ivory setting when she laughed. He had lost count of the times he had pictured what she might look like in the heat of passion.
    He’d also forgotten that laugh, how it curled around his heart and drew a smile from him every time. She was so warm, so funny, so very much more than Don Cooper had ever deserved. It didn’t surprise Paul to hear that Coop had been on coke, as that explained quite a bit. Nor was he surprised that Stella had the strength to leave him once she finally saw him for the jerk he was.
    But he was sorry Stella had to go through all that. She’d been kindhearted, thinking Coop was just misunderstood, assuming the best of him. Thinking she could save him, fix him.