Free How To Host a Seduction by Jeanie London Page B

of their generation.”
    No argument there. His parents brought to life the cliché two peas in a pod, as infatuated with each other today as they had been when Christopher was a child. Which had caused him considerable embarrassment in his youth. He used to roll his eyes and spend as much time with his grandfather as he could manage, but that was before he’d matured enough to appreciate how rare and special was the love his parents shared.
    â€œYou and Ellen are grand passion personified.” Miss Q sighed again, with such drama that Christopher knew he’d come to the right place when he’d asked for her help.
    True, hooking up with the little old matchmaker had been an unconventional approach to the problem, but he’d analyzed his options, assessed the success-to-failure ratio. Lovesickness aside, Christopher hadn’t worked his way into executive management with a multinational holding corporation without the ability to read people and trust his gut instinct.
    Miss Q was his best bet for success.
    He would not overplay his hand again. Not remembering how he’d felt sitting in his Manhattan office, staring fifty stories down at the busy street. People rushing around the city, playing, working and living their lives. Ellen didn’t work far away and could have been any one of them, hurrying out to meet with an agent at one of the city’s fancy eateries or squeezing in some shopping on her lunch hour.
    But from where Christopher had sat, he couldn’t see her.
    It was a feeling he didn’t plan to experience again.
    Â 
    I F THE GLARE BURNING through Ellen’s still-closed eyelids was any clue, sunlight was streaming into the room. The provocative jazz of the night before had yielded to silence. The shadows of lengthening dusk had melted away beneath bright Louisiana sunshine that singed her eyes and spotlighted dreamlike images of arms and legs twined, a strong body realigning itself around her whenever she’d moved.
    Ellen didn’t wake up easily on the best of days, and on a day like today, when her entire body felt tender and achy, disoriented but so very contented…
    That thought brought her to full consciousness in less time than it took to blink.
    Christopher.
    Bolting upright, Ellen almost gave herself whiplashlooking for him, but he was nowhere to be seen. And she’d just about convinced herself he’d been nothing more than an erotic dream when she heard the sound of the shower running.
    Tossing off the covers, she forced her feet over the side of the bed. Every part of her body, from her lips south, felt hypersensitive from his sexy attention. Her thighs trembled. Her muscles groaned from unaccustomed exercise. Her sex gave a needy throb—a warning, perhaps, that last night had reawakened an appetite she’d be hard-pressed to rein under control again.
    Damn him. No wonder she’d been having such trouble getting him out of her head. Christopher was hands-down lethal in the lovemaking department and he irresponsibly shared his gift without consideration for the repercussions to his partners.
    Pushing to her feet, Ellen yanked a sheet away from the tangle of covers—not difficult, considering the bed looked as though a battle had been fought there—wrapped it around herself and made her way across the room.
    He’d left the French doors open, but she only spared a passing glance at the private courtyard where a swimming pool sat amidst a garden of lush greenery, Spanish moss and brightly blooming flowers. Gardenia scented the air, her absolute favorite, but Ellen didn’t pause to savor the scent before striding through the bathroom door, across the tiled floor, and planting herself in front of the shower stall.
    He tipped his head back under the spray, eyes closed against the shampoo sluicing down his face and over broad shoulders, along muscles that rippled beneath sheets of frothy lather, caressing him as possessively as