Free Lone Wolfe by Kate Hewitt

‘Don’t—’
she whispered. She didn’t even know what she wanted to stop, the look on
Jacob’s face or the touch of his hand. Her body certainly didn’t want him to stop;
her body wanted hands, mouths, lips. Everywhere, everything.
                 ‘Don’t
what?’ Jacob asked in a voice of lethal softness.
                 ‘Don’t
tease me,’ Mollie said, for surely that was what he was doing. He used
seduction—sex—like a weapon, the most powerful one he had. She wished she had
the strength to step away but she didn’t. She closed her eyes, briefly, in
silent supplication, then opened them. She drew a
steady breath. ‘What do you want from me, Jacob?’
                 ‘Now,
that’s an interesting question.’ Smiling faintly, Jacob drew his finger back
along her collarbone, up her neck and then lightly across one cheek. She felt
as if he’d marked her, as if she’d see a livid red line where he’d touched. She
even glanced down at herself to check; there was nothing.
                 His
hand rested on her cheek, his thumb caressing the fullness of her lips. ‘I’m
attracted to you, Mollie,’ he said, and inside she quavered at the knowledge,
both with wonder and trepidation. ‘And you’re attracted to me.’ His thumb
rested fully on her mouth; she couldn’t speak even if she wanted to. ‘We’re
alone here, for the foreseeable future. Why not make the most of it?’
                 He
sounded so reasonable, so affable, so bland. Why not make the most of it? As if it
could—or would—be so simple and easy. She knew it would not. She knew Jacob
knew it too; she could see it in the blazing blackness of his eyes. He was
provoking her with this seductive suggestion. It was a challenge, a reaction to
her intrusive questions, her instinctive sympathy. It wasn’t the easy suggestion
he made it sound. It was a punishment.
                 Somehow
she found the strength to step away; Jacob let his hand fall, easily, without
regret or apology. ‘You mean an affair,’ she stated flatly.
                 He
paused, his eyes narrowing slightly. ‘Call it what you will.’
                 ‘No
strings,’ she clarified, because even though it was so obvious she still had to
say it. Jacob Wolfe was not a man who cultivated relationships.
                 ‘None.’
                 And
for one gloriously tempting moment, despite the dark reasons for his suggestion
that she could only guess, she could imagine it. Every nerve and sinew of her
body clamoured for it, because when had she ever indulged in something so
sensual, so basic and pleasurable, as an affair? She’d had a few mediocre
relationships in university, but nothing that remotely came close to what Jacob
Wolfe was offering. And for the past five years she’d been living the life of a
reclusive nun, caring for her father, working as much as she could, barely able
to make ends meet. Even in Italy she’d been too busy visiting gardens and
healing her own grief to really pay attention to any men.
                 Yet
here was Jacob Wolfe, darkly dangerous, utterly beautiful, suggesting they have
an affair.
                 Sex .
                 It
was outrageous. Incredible. A little
alarming. Tempting.
                 And
yet she couldn’t do it. And she knew Jacob knew it too. Perhaps that was the
only reason he’d suggested it in the first place.
                 She’d
seen something in Jacob’s eyes, something real and dark and wounded, and knew
that she couldn’t get involved with this man. Couldn’t keep
her body and heart separate. Jacob Wolfe would hurt her. Maybe he
wouldn’t mean to, maybe he wouldn’t want to, but he would.
                 She
would let him. She didn’t know how to have a no-strings affair, and she wasn’t
about to start with a man like Jacob Wolfe.