Free The Unwilling Bride by Jennifer Greene Page B

who were different, never made judgments or asked questions that were none of his business. Too many people had done that to him.
    Her affection for Harry was real, but the message on the answering machine was forgotten as fast as she heard it. Just then, she had an entirely different man on her mind.
    She pulled the sweatshirt over her head while she was still climbing the stairs, yanked off the rubber band holding her braid while she was stomping through the hall. In two minutes flat, she planned to be in a hot shower and washing that man right out of her hair like the song went.
    There were reasons Stefan was seeping under her skin. It wasn’t his Russian Cream. The damn man had an irresistible sneaky sense of humor; he’d made her laugh and he’d made her think, and he’d about torn out her heart when he talked about his conflict of loyalties. A man that hopelessly idealistic needed protecting. She’d been a rebel herself—but not like him. He sounded so alone. He sounded as if he’d always been stuck bucking the tide, to live how he believed. Men that good were rare and special, and yeah, Paige understood perfectly well why she was drawn to him.
    It was the other part she didn’t understand.
    Her whole body felt shaky. Weird. Achy. Selfaware. She wasn’t used to feeling desire, wasn’t used to this pipe-bomb blast of stupid, rich, butter-soft… yearning. She had almost made love with him on the cracked leather couch in the den, and a no had never even crossed her mind. She wasn’t used to a man turning her inside out. Physically or emotionally.
    And it couldn’t be allowed to happen again.
    She flipped on the bedroom overhead light. No surprise, her gaze zoomed straight to the jade cameo on her dresser. And no surprise, her instinctive response to the woman in jade was an uneasy, unsettled edginess. The cameo was a beautiful piece of art, which was hunky-dory. But there was something about that woman that personified free, abandoned sensuality—and grated on Paige’s nerves like a child’s piercing cry.
    There was nothing admirable about wanton behavior, nothing to respect in a woman who let her hormones run free. Paige wasn’t “abandoned.” She wasn’t irresponsible. She had spent ten years building up inhibitions, and she wanted every one of them. Maybe once she’d been a selfish, careless teenager, but that was a bridge long down. She wanted to be exactly who she was now: a disciplined woman who knew damn well how to control inappropriate behavior. Or she had. Until this afternoon with Stefan.
    Impatiently she tossed her sweatshirt over the jade cameo—covering it completely. And then flicked off the light and headed straight for the shower. She flipped the faucets on full blast, finished stripping down and stepped in. The hot water sluiced down her skin, soaking, steaming. She willed it to make these shaky, edgy feelings disappear.
    Sometime, she wanted a family and children. That dream had never been off her table. She’d never planned a celibate life-style. There were times, whole long lonely nights, when she craved someone to love. And to be loved by.
    It wasn’t a man she was afraid of. But he had to be the right man. A professor or a teacher, maybe. Someone quiet, someone distracted and absorbed bywork the way she was, someone she could talk with, someone she felt safe with when the lights went off at night.
    A boisterous, effusive, gregarious and exuberantly sexual man…like Stefan. Holy kamoly. Whatever that irrepressible Russian did to turn her inside out…this was all very simple. And her mind covered the entire discussion and analysis in a single word. No.
    “Stefan, what on earth are you doing?”
    Stefan looked up. It would seem pretty obvious what he was doing. Paige’s house had an old-fashioned coal shute leading into the basement. The shute was no longer used for coal, but the opening was handy for throwing wood inside, and once he had her basement full of firewood, he’d