Free Cullen's Bride by Fiona Brand Page A

errant tendril. “If you’re talking about your plan to scare me off, then I’d say it’s doing the exact opposite.”
    His mouth curved into a wry smile, and Rachel caught her breath. She’d been right in thinking he would be sinful if he smiled. Sinful and bad, good enough to eat, and dangerously, wildly sexy.
    â€œBaby, I may not scare you, but you sure as hell scare me.”
    And then he bent his head, blocking out the moon. His hand curved around her nape, his palm rough against her skin, holding her still as his mouth brushed hers. His lips were firm and unexpectedly tender. She’d braced herself for a hard, plundering, ravaging assault, but the sweetness of his caress was butterfly-soft, and so beguiling that she ached for him to deepen the pressure. Her hands lifted and settled on the incredible warmth of his chest as she parted her lips and tilted her head to grant him easier access. She was as guilty of misjudging Cullen as everyone else was—he looked every inch an outlaw, but he was kissing her like an angel. A fallen, dangerously beautiful angel
    Cullen groaned when Rachel opened her mouth for him He hadn’t expected that. But then, nothing about Rachel Sinclair was predictable. He should have run the second she stepped up to the fence. Come to that, he should have left the party as soon as he saw her arrive. But he hadn’t. He’d stayed, and he’d ended up touching her. Worse, he’d let Russ fill his ear with the kind of small-town gossip he should know better than to listen to. He hadn’t wanted to know about Rachel’s failed marriage, or that her mother had died when she was a baby and her father had been too sunk in grief to hold his daughter. He definitely hadn’t wanted to know that when Sinclair had finally surfaced from mourning, he’d been at a loss for how to deal with the girl child who looked so much like his too fragile second wife, beyond paying for other people to care for her.
    And most of all, Cullen hadn’t wanted to hear about how Rachel had been sent away to school when she was still so small she should have been cuddled up on her mother’s lap. He didn’t want the image of Rachel, desperate and alone, haunting him. He had enough of his own ghosts and demons.
    Her tongue touched his tentatively, almost shyly, and Cullen groaned. Damn. Who was he trying to kid? He’d come to the barbecue because he wanted this. Because watching her from a distance was better than nothing. And suddenly he was more concerned with cradling her close, soothing and stroking her with his hands, than making her believe how impossible it was that they could ever be together.
    His tongue mated gently with hers, and she sighed, melting against him. Her arms crept around his neck, fingers drifting through his hair, sliding it free from the leather thong that bound it, then knotting her fingers in it to pull him closer.
    Cullen shuddered with pure pleasure at the insistent tugging, sinking his own fingers deeper into her hair, coaxing her tongue farther into his mouth, deepening the kiss with every second that passed, until they were welded together so tightly that her heartbeat shivered through him.
    His hand drifted over the warm, silky skin of her back, grazed her zipper and, before he could think, eased it down so he could trace the hollow at the base of her spine and the lacy line of panties that were just as flimsy, just as silken, as her dress. Cullen shuddered again as Rachel continued to pet him as if he were a big, muscular cat, her fingers flexing, stroking, raking through his hair. He wanted to do the same to her, and more. He wanted to push all the silk aside and slip his hand lower, test the sweet moisture he knew he would find ...
    Rachel made a low sound in her throat and moved, fitting herself more closely against him. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and just the thought of releasing the tie behind her neck, then taking the