Free A Kiss Remembered by Sandra Brown

touch it, to test its crinkling texture with her fingertips. She found herself studying the hair just above his gold belt buckle. Vividly she remembered the way it had felt under her hand when she caressed him in the library. Her whole body felt oddly weak, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away.
    “I’ll be right with you,” he said, smiling down at her and retreating beyond her range of vision.
    Using inordinate care to keep from dropping it, she closed the compact and replaced it in her purse, searching now for her hairbrush. Maybe if she concentrated on such ordinary tasks, she wouldn’t think about how he looked or the blood pumping through her veins like rich syrup.
    “Dammit.”
    The muffled curse came from the loft. She heard shuffling movements, another curse. “What is it?”
    “A button just came off my shirt and I don’t have another clean one that goes with the coat I was going to wear.”
    “Do you have a sewing kit?”
    “Sure.”
    “Bring it here. I’ll see what I can do.”
    Within seconds, he was loping down the staircase with a speed that would have made her dizzy. “We’re in luck. There’s some blue thread in here,” he said, extracting from the sewing kit a card with several colors of thread wound around it. A slender sewing needle was secured in the cardboard.
    She took the sewing implements from him, thankful for something to do so she wouldn’t have to look at him. He had left the shirt unbuttoned, and a close-up view of that wonderfully masculine chest was more disturbing than a distant one. “Where’s the button?”
    “Here.” He passed the small white button to her.
    “Are you going to … to … uh, take it off ?”
    “Can’t you sew on the button this way?”
    She swallowed. “Sure,” she said with a cocky assurance she was far from feeling. Somehow, despite palsied fingers, she managed to thread the needle with the pale blue thread.
    “Should we sit down?” he asked.
    “No. This is fine.”
    The button was the third one down from the collar, which placed it in the middle of his chest. Pushing aside a wave of self-consciousness, she took the fine material between her fingers, held it taut and, slipping her other hand under it, pulled the needle through.
    She worked as quickly as she could without snarling the thread. Ever aware of his chest just beneath her fingers, she tried to avoid touching him. Invariably, however, she was tickled by springy hairs or warmed by the skin under her hand. There were moments when he didn’t seem to be breathing. When his breath was released, she felt it on her forehead and cheeks. She could swear that the dull thudding she heard was his heartbeat, but it might have been her own. By the time she knotted the thread, her senses were reeling.
    “Scissors?” she asked huskily.

CHAPTER 5
    S cissors?” He repeated the word as though he’d never heard it before. His eyes were staring into hers, peeling away layer after layer of defense until he reached her soul. “I don’t know where they are,” he said at last.
    “Never mind.” Not thinking, only wishing to end this project that had completely unnerved her, she leaned forward and caught the thread between her teeth, biting it in two. Not until then did she realize that her lips hovered a fraction of an inch from his chest. Her breath stirred the hair covering it.
    “Shelley.” He sighed.
    His hands came up to touch her hair reverently. She couldn’t turn away. Her brain was telling her to step back, escape, flee, but her body refused to obey. Instead she surrendered to the seduction of the moment. She didn’t even try to fight the compulsion that swept her toward him with the irrevocability of the tide. Sweetly she nuzzled him with her nose.
    “Again, Shelley, again. Please.”
    Apparently he was as transported by what was happening as she. His voice was uneven and thin, lacking its usual resonance. He placed his thumbs in front of her ears and encircled the back of her head