Free Satin Pleasures by Karen Docter Page A

trying not to think about what lay innocently beneath his fingertips. God help him, it was red. He’d never get that image of Tess in his four-poster out of his head now.
    When he’d laid eyes on it, he pictured her modeling it for him. The second his fingers touched the sensuous material, he felt the smooth silk of her skin. Her perfume, enticing in the air around him, wove around his senses and dragged him deeper into a whirlpool of longing.
    A vivid daydream skipped across his mind. His hands, buried in the romantic curls piled high on her head as he skimmed slow, burning kisses down her slender throat. His fingers, pulling, tugging pins, until her hair hung in wild abandon down her back and over the peek-a-boo lace at her breasts. An invitation to the explorer inside him.
    He’d start his expedition at the very top and release each hook slowly until he —
    “Dan?”
    Caught in her spice-filled eyes, he cursed his demanding libido and handed the box over the counter, abruptly concluding their business together. “Have a nice day, Tess.”
    That should have ended it for Dan. It didn’t. Something began to nag at him after she’d clutched her purchase to her breasts and left the store. It was closing time before he acknowledged what he’d done. He’d tied at least six knots in the string that triple-wrapped the box holding her new lingerie. Only a sharp pair of scissors or a very determined lover was getting anywhere near Tess’s present.
    His groan reverberated through the empty stockroom. He dropped the tangle of discarded hangers he was separating. Hadn’t he learned anything this past year? He’d known from the start Tess represented a lifestyle he couldn’t survive again. Hell, as a friend she threatened the balance he needed, made him edgy and provoked memories of what he’d left behind. Uncomfortable memories of things he hadn’t known he missed.
    He didn’t want to miss anything about his old life. The very things he’d loved most, the excitement, the challenge, damned near killed him. Lying in a hospital bed for weeks fighting pneumonia and a body determined to shut down on him, he’d had a lot of time to think about his obsessions and where they were leading him.
    The day his doctor announced, “I think you’ll live, Mr. McDonald,” was the day he decided he would. Live . His search for balance began when he checked out of the hospital. He spent the intervening months working himself into shape, both physically and mentally. He pursued financial investments strictly for his own amusement, always moving on when the transaction was finished. At least, he had until Florida, where he realized his idle days were numbered.
    By the time he headed west in answer to his family’s call for help, he knew where he was going afterwards. He’d made plans. Then, he drove onto a bridge in the middle of San Francisco Bay and run smack into a new obsession. He knew her name and, heaven help him, a million placid fishing holes might not be enough to cure him of this one.
    He’d wondered if he was making the biggest mistake of his life by coming here. Now, he knew. He should have turned the truck around while he had the chance.

Chapter Five
    Tess had trouble with a capital “T”. “Happy Birthday,” she whispered after the Fancy Footsteps owner, Don West, left her office Monday morning.
    She couldn’t believe she was in danger of losing his lease. All that stood in his way were sentimental feelings about a twenty-year-old storefront that launched his shoe empire and her assurance his sales would improve. If he did take his business elsewhere, he’d be the fifth merchant to desert the ship in the past year. She was losing her beloved shopping center to a long, downhill slide into oblivion, one tiny piece at a time.
    Not that she blamed any of her tenants for moving on to upscale facilities with higher visibility and more amenities. She’d warned her superiors serious changes needed to be made or the