Free Reluctant Surrender by Riley Murphy Page B

me own them, even if it’s just for a little while.”
     

Chapter Five
     
    Colin was one hot emotional mess. Take now, for instance. Ethan pulled her into his big arms, murmuring encouraging and kind words. Crushing her in the comfort of his embrace so securely she should be blubbering hard and soaking his shirt, but she wasn’t. Instead she was reveling in the rise of his chest against her cheek as he breathed in. Dying a sexy death as he exhaled and she sank deeply into his warmth. He smelled like cooling rain and the way new leaves did after a downpour and she loved it. She could get used to this. Used to him.
    When that came to her so did her common sense, along with a heavy dose of despair. What was she doing?
    “Let me go.” She angled back enough to get her palms on his chest. “Please.”
    Abruptly he opened his arms and she nearly fell off the couch. Managing to grab hold of the cushion, she used that to propel her upward and into an awkward stumble to the counter. The whole trip she silently berated herself for being an ass. She had no business— Wait, this wasn’t her fault, it was his. He knew more about all this stuff than she did. He was an experienced Dom. A Master, both figuratively and literally. Her eyes narrowed as his earlier words came to mind. We have a situation here and I won’t take advantage of it. Yeah right.
    “Don’t use your hypnotist hocus-pocus on me, big guy. I’ve got tricks too, you know.”
    “You think I’m trying to trick you?” He slapped his hands on his knees and pushed his massive body into a stand. “Sweetheart, we need to get you off this merry-go-round. Even I’m getting dizzy.”
    Where was he going? “Hey, wait a second. I’m not joking. I have goals and you’re going to mess them up being so…being—”
    “Nice?” He paused with his hand on the fridge door. “Honest?” He opened it and turned to look at her. “Helpful?” He pulled out a container of juice and poured himself a tall glass.
    “No, no and no. You know exactly what you’re doing.”
    “Would you like some juice?”
    She’d been prepared for the equivalent of verbal fisticuffs so it took her a moment. “Juice?”
    “Yes,” he said slowly. His gaze was penetrating. Intense before he brought his index finger up and drew a line across the smaller text on the bottle, slowly saying, “Fresh squeezed orange juice not from concentrate.”
    The only two words that stuck out in her mind at the moment were “squeezed” and “concentrate”. Probably on account of the heavy waves of achy desire that were squeezing the life out the sensitive flesh they were currently concentrating on.
    Damn.
    “No.”
    He put the bottle down and stacked his palms, one on top of the other, covering the cap. “No, what?”
    “No I don’t want any orange juice.”
    His smile was tight. “The polite way to respond is with a, ‘no thank you’.”
    She blushed.
    He stared.
    She blushed some more.
    When he didn’t move she instantly knew what the phrase “time stood still” really meant. Swallowing, she croaked, “No thank you.”
    That was it. She fully expected a long lecture or his continued censure. Something. But there was nothing in his demeanor as he put the juice away and turned back to her to indicate he’d given her rudeness another thought. It was quite refreshing and put her totally at ease. Wow. “You’re really good at this, aren’t you?”
    He took a sip of his drink and put it down. “Good at…?”
    As if he didn’t know. “Seduction.”
    She wanted to die when he grinned. Her knees went all rubbery and that ache between her legs turned to liquid fire.
    “Is that what you think is going on here?”
    All she could do was nod.
    That to-die-for grin slid into a crooked smile that took her breath away. “Colin, if I had a mind to seduce you right now, you wouldn’t have to ask me if I’m good at it. You’d know I was.”
    Unbelievable! He wasn’t even trying to put the moves on