Free Every Girl's Secret Fantasy by Robyn Grady

over her shoulder.
    As if it were a difficult choice, Pace had tilted his head. He moved towards her, nearer and nearer, until his mouth eventually stopped a breath away from hers. The dark bristles on his jaw glistened in the silver threads of light slanting in through the window.
    Then that masculine mouth grinned and suddenly, like an urge to jump, Phoebe’s fingertips burned to sample the sandpaper-roughness of those cheeks and compare the abrasion to those soft smiling lips. She still felt edgy, but where Pace was concerned she couldn’t seem to keep the longing she felt for him down.
    He said, “I think I like the sound of cocoa.” His deep voice resonated through her blood like chords of music before he lobbed an unhurried glance over his shoulder to the fireplace, the couch. “It’s almost cold enough for a fire,” he said, as his eyes climbed the ladder and then swam back to focus once more upon her lips. A lopsided smile hooked his mouth, perfectlyaligned teeth appearing as his smile grew. “Shall we drive it in?”
    Quivering inside, Phoebe swallowed hard.
    She knew his mind: cocoa first, soft mattress and crisp sheets later. After the explosion of those kisses earlier she really couldn’t blame him.
    Low and deep inside, that giddy spiral of longing intensified, the heart-thumping sensation spreading over her body like a delicious rash. Nape, nipples, fingertips—everything tingled. Despite her past experiences…the doubts she harboured about herself…wouldn’t sleeping with Pace Davis would be the easiest, most natural thing in the world?
    His lidded eyes held hers. “I have an idea. But we’ll need a few things.”
    Phoebe’s heartbeat skipped. A few things like, maybe, massage oil? Body chocolate?
    â€œDo you have a Thermos?”
    Phoebe blinked. Did he say… “A Thermos ?”
    â€œAnd a blanket? The picnic kind.”
    She blinked again. “Yes, I have a blanket…and a Thermos.”
    â€œIt’ll be dark soon.” Moving to a window, Pace drew back the curtain to inspect a horizon hinting at the rose-hewn colours of sunset. “We’ll take the cocoa with us on a walk. And didn’t you say there was apple pie?”
    Phoebe risked a peek at the loft, visualised two bodies wreathing and on the brink, then she saw it as it actually was—a quaint room with a neat quilted bed, shelves chock-full of memories, a box filled with her childhood dress-ups, and a one-eyed teddy bear propped on his cushions. A young woman’s retreat from her small-minded world.
    Still, as they put pie and drinks together for their picnic, his scent filled her lungs, his heat teased her skin, and Phoebe couldn’t help but wonder if it was time for her loft to grow up, too.

CHAPTER SIX
    T EN minutes later they were strolling beside a pretty winding stream that reminded Pace of the countryside when he’d visited Germany—verdant green and breathtakingly picturesque. The last of the sun was hanging onto the day as a cool breeze drifted in from the silhouetted hills. Hannie had trotted off ahead, trusting Pace with his mistress as he disappeared into the grass.
    Pace inhaled a lung full of fresh air. “Ever miss these wide open spaces?”
    â€œSometimes. Meg and my mother loved the country. That house was their parents’, and their parents’ before them. Meg used to reminisce for hours about their ‘adventures in the wilderness’ when they were young.”
    â€œSounds like they were good mates,” Pace said, thinking about Nick and how they’d never seen eye to eye but rather had constantly competed. Growing up, it had always been who hit the ball hardest? Or whose mud pies were the biggest? Between his father’s expectations and his brother’s goading Pace had been constantly kept on his toes. But he’d more than held his own. Until that one god-awful, very public