Free The Billionaire's Second-Chance Bride (The Romero Brothers, #1) by Shadonna Richards Page A

needed oxygen ... like yesterday.
    “Are you okay, Miss Shillerton?” Antonio’s low voice slid into her.
    She took a minute to catch her breath and realized that they were already at the bottom of the slope. She was still panting, breathing hard and fast.
    “Well, I’m glad you didn’t pass out on me up there.” He grinned.
    Lucy gazed into his eyes, her mind was still reeling from his soft, sensual kiss. This man oozed power. Sexual power and lots of it. Yet he just claimed that he didn’t fall in love. That was what he said, wasn’t it? She was aware he was never heartbroken but he must have broken a hell of a lot of hearts.
    Lucy was shaking. She was shivering and it wasn’t because of a cool night breeze.
    “Lucy, come on. I’d better take you home.”
    “M-m-my car,” she stuttered.
    “Maxine drove it home, remember?”
    “Oh, right.” Lucy clutched her forehead. Superman CEO here just stole her breath away and all her senses and her memory, too, with just one hot, memorable kiss.
    “Sorry, I shouldn’t have done that,” he murmured.
    “Done what?”
    “I sometimes get ahead of myself. I just didn’t want you passing out on me there.”
    “Yeah, I...I know. Thank you.” So that was all it was? Antonio was saving her, not seducing her?
    Then why was her body still pulsing and reacting to him?
    It wasn’t anything, Lucy. Don’t get ahead of yourself. It was only a kiss.
    No. It wasn’t just a kiss. It was freaking the best feeling I’d ever experienced sexually and he hadn’t even undressed me...yet.
    Later, when Lucy arrived at her apartment, she pressed the remote for her iPod dock and the first song that loaded really spoke to how she felt at that moment. It was a hot, soulful ballad from Deborah Cox titled “Nobody’s Supposed to Be Here.” That woman sure could sing. And she was singing just what Lucy was feeling. Lucy crouched down on the floor by her door after closing it. She grabbed her knees to her chest.
    Shit!
    She was falling for Antonio Romero.
    That was so wrong on so many levels.
    He wasn’t relationship material. He told her that. Not just told her, screamed it from the mountaintops.
    She didn’t want to get her heart slammed into pieces again.
    But yet, he made her feel the way no man had ever made her feel before. Not even her first love. The song boomed through her dock speakers. She pondered the lyrics. “How did you get here...nobody’s supposed to be here...I’ve tried that love thing for the last time...”
    Lucy had to get Antonio out of her system and fast. This was all wrong. She craved the way he made her feel. She craved him. But she could not, should not give her heart to him.
    Once bitten, twice shy.
    Once betrayed, twice afraid.
    She had to try to un-fall in love with this guy. He was so out of her league. Besides, she swore off men—for now, anyway. Look what Jeff did to her. And she really had trusted Jeff.
    So why was her heart telling her that she needed Antonio, that she should be with him?
    She squeezed her eyes shut. She was shivering all over. She was still buzzing from Antonio’s sexually charged, passionate kiss. Her lips still tingled from his touch. Those soft, hot lips of his. His amazing tongue twirling. How did he do that? She was stoked by him. Captivated by him. She was...in love with him.
    CHAPTER SEVEN
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    A ntonio kissed me.
    Lucy was reeling over that seductive kiss. She was still thrilled about Monday’s sexually-charged kiss with Antonio Romero. It was two days ago and yet the erotic touch of his lips remained as a phantom sensation. Ah, those lips of his. Soft, sweet, tender. She’d never met anyone like Antonio. His kiss could bring a woman to dizzying heights of sensual pleasure. What would it feel like to be even more intimate with him? Lucy's body was still pulsing over the naughty thoughts swirling in her mind. So there really was such a thing as sparks flying when you kissed the right person? Lucy