Free Here to Stay by Debra Webb Page B

then took a
seat next to him, but not too close. She pulled the hem of her
night shirt over her thighs as she tucked her feet under her
bottom.
    “Did you hear from Robert today?” Nathan
asked as if that’s what he’d come through the rain and the storm to
find out.
    “Yes. He and Ginny are having a great time.
Vegas may become as annual affair.” Paige laughed softly. “I think
they’re going to be really good together.”
    “I think so, too,” Nathan agreed before
taking a sip of his brandy.
    “You haven’t said much about how things are
going at your place,” she ventured when he didn’t say anything
else.
    “We haven’t really done much talking until
today, now have we?” He smiled a sexy, heart-stopping kind of
smile.
    “No, I guess we haven’t. We’ve been too busy
trying to take each other’s heads off.” Paige released a sigh and
drank down the last of the fiery liquid. It left a trail of warmth
as it flowed downward. Where the brandy’s effects left off,
Nathan’s began. She wondered if she had any effect on him
physically. Probably not. His level of sexual sophistication likely
surpassed becoming aroused by the mere sight of a scantily clad
female.
    She waited for Nathan to speak again, but he
didn’t. She supposed that maybe he was waiting for her, but she
didn’t know what else to say. She had spoken last. The silence in
the room seemed deafening. The rain whipped around the exterior of
the house with the same force as her body temperature appeared
determined to rise. She felt warm and moist in places that had
nothing to do with the climate.
    He smelled good, like leather and rain.
Reluctantly, she surrendered and allowed her gaze to wander over
his profile while he stared into his brandy. Every feature spoke of
strength and beauty. She had never met another man like Nathan
Blackrope. And no one else had ever made her feel the way just
looking at him did. Everything about him appealed to her senses.
The way his clothes fit his lean, sinewy body. His long, silky
black hair. The heat in his eyes that spoke of passion and fire.
She sighed. But it was not to be.
    “I should go,” Nathan muttered then stood. He
walked to the bar and set down his glass.
    Disappointed that he was leaving so soon, she
deposited her glass on the table and followed him to the front
door, the trusty lantern in her right hand. “Thank you. It was very
sweet of you to bring me a light.”
    He shrugged into his duster and took his hat
in his hands. He offered a strained smile. “It was just one of
those spontaneous things, you know…” His voice tailed off as his
gaze dropped to her mouth and then jerked back up to her eyes.
    Paige’s heart leapt in her chest when she
recognized the hunger in his eyes. Need radiated from his entire
body. She could almost feel the vibrations. The realization rattled
her. She felt breathless. Nathan wanted her .
    He settled the hat on his dark head. “Good
night.”
    Before Paige could catch her breath, he had
opened the door and walked across the porch. She stood, rooted in
the doorway.
    “Good night, Nathan,” she called to his
retreating back. He paused on the bottom step and turned around.
The way he looked at her had her feeling weak and suddenly too far
away. Rain dripped from the edge of his Stetson, but still he stood
there…looking at her like no one else had ever looked at her, with
a need and a hunger that dwarfed everything else into utter
insignificance. Rivulets of water slipped down his rain-slicked
duster. She wanted to run to him, but she couldn’t move. She prayed
he would run back to her, but he remained perfectly
still—motionless in the falling rain.
    A blaze of lightning flashed through the dark
sky, and Paige saw in his eyes, for just the briefest fraction of a
second, the love that had once bound her to him. Before her heart
took another beat she sensed that that bond was as strong and
powerful as if it had never been broken. But suddenly the