Free Up In Flames by Lori Foster Page A

her. Then she felt his hand cup her breast.
    “Your heart is still pounding,” he said with deep satisfaction.
    “That’s...that’s good.” A heartbeat, considering she felt like she’d died, was definitely a promising sign.
    She could hear his smile in the way he spoke. “You didn’t do a very good job of staying on the skirt. You’re more in the sand than out of it.”
    What was he babbling about? What difference did it make if she was in the sand? Blindly, she reached out to him, wanting to draw him close again. He caught her hand and held it. “Mel, I lied about the coconut.”
    He obviously thought her beyond naive, bordering on stupid. But she played along. “No aphrodisiac?”
    “Of course not. But you did want me.”
    Very slowly, his words sank in. She heard the wonder and the insistence. She turned her head to face him. “I still do, Adam.”
    “Are you sure?”
    He sounded uncertain, and for a man like Adam, that had to be unique. It was her turn to smile. Despite the lethargy that tried to rule her body, she rolled on top of him. He gladly went to his back and helped hold her in place, his hands firm on her bottom. She kissed his nose, his bristly chin. “No woman needs an aphrodisiac when you’re around. You breathe and women want to jump your bones.”
    “You were never interested, Mel.” He stroked her hair and gave her a slight smile. “No matter what I did, you managed to turn up your nose at me like I didn’t exist.”
    Her eyes widened. “You really think that?” Then another thought invaded her fogged brain and she asked, “Do you mean to tell me you constantly provoked me just to get my attention?”
    She might not have believed him, despite the recent display of his desire, if she hadn’t seen the look in his eyes. But there was so much feeling there, so much raw emotion.
    His hands cupped her head, his thumb brushed her cheek. “I’m sorry I was sometimes mean. As a kid, it seemed so damn unfair that you had everything, even things I hadn’t dared dream of. You sort of represented everything that was missing in my life, all the stuff my parents worked so hard for but could never get.”
    She felt the prickle of tears and knew he wouldn’t appreciate her sympathy. She swallowed hard.
    “But somewhere along the way,” he continued, “I started wanting you, not the material things you had. I’d stopped being mean by the time we were thirteen, Mel, but you didn’t notice. You still avoided me.” With a smile, he said, “You could get that pretty little nose so high in the air, I could have thrown myself at your feet and you wouldn’t have seen me.”
    He was so wrong, but how could she explain all the various things he’d made her feel over the years? Yes, she’d often been angry at him, but she’d also felt alive whenever he was near. Adam never ignored her like the rest of the town did. He didn’t give her only distant politeness. And he didn’t hide what he felt behind proper manners, as her parents were wont to do. Her mother and father loved her, she’d never doubted that. But they considered an excess of emotion uncouth. They’d always been careful in how they expressed their feelings.
    Not Adam. No, he teased and harassed and provoked—and she’d always responded to him, whether he knew it or not. In many ways, she’d equally dreaded and looked forward to her daily confrontations with him.
    Twining her fingers in his chest hair, she said, “I was never...indifferent to you, Adam.”
    He gave her a crooked smile. “No, most times you hated me. And all I could think about was getting you out of your dainty little pants. Hell, there were days I’d get hard just seeing you in town or in school. You had a way of walking, like a queen, that drove me crazy. Even when I thought you were skinny—”
    “I am skinny.”
    He shook his head. “No. You’re thin, but you’ve got all the right curves in all the right places. If I’d known what you were hiding