Free Not Even for Love by Sandra Brown

way you move. I like to watch you eat and drink. Especially hot chocolate. I like the sound of your voice. I love the way you feel. I love the way you touch me. I love the way you smell, the way your skin tastes—”
    “Reeves, we shouldn’t. This isn’t right,” she said against his insistent mouth.
    “Let me hold you. Let me kiss you. And then tell me it isn’t right. Jordan,” he rasped as his hands closed over the soft mounds beneath her sweater, “I dare you to tell me this isn’t right.”
    When his mouth melded with hers, it was impossible to think of a reasonable protest, much less to utter one. His lips burned through hers, and she was doomed to die under their fire. He countenanced no resistance, no reluctance. He sipped at her lips until they became malleable to his will and then he parted them with a gentle thrust of his tongue.
    He savored her mouth, one moment ravaging it, the next soothing it with lips and tongue. One arm curved around her back and drew her inexorably against him, while the other hand continued to smooth over her sweater-clad chest.
    “Why did you wear that damn bra?” he growled against her ear, and worried the lobe with his teeth.
    “I—”
    “It doesn’t matter,” he whispered. “I can still feel you through it.” And his inquisitive fingers proved his point.
    “Reeves?” She was barely capable of speaking, so fine was the passionate web he had spun around her.
    “Yes?”
    “Reeves?” she breathed.
    The echo of thudding footsteps came to them out of the darkness. An instant later they were aware of Helmut’s voice calling out, “Jordan, Reeves?”
    They looked at each other and froze. Reeves was calm, cool, unaffected. He waited for her reaction. Jordan was alarmed. She didn’t feel any grand love for Helmut, but she didn’t want to hurt or humiliate him either. His personality couldn’t take such a blow. She jumped away from Reeves, straightening her clothing, and took a few hastening steps toward the direction of the voice. “We’re here, Helmut.”
    “You were gone so long, I thought you might have lost your way,” he said humorously as he drew closer and soon stepped into a circle of light nearby.
    “No, we…I was just telling Reeves one of the legends you told me about William Tell,” she said, lying badly.
    Helmut, secure and confident of himself, didn’t notice the prevarication. “You must be cold, my dear. You’re shivering. Button up your coat. Perhaps we should see you home. Did you enjoy the tour, Reeves?”
    There was an unendurable pause before he answered, and Jordan held her breath. She looked at him with pleading eyes and was startled to see the brittle emerald glare that pierced the darkness. “Yes,” he replied to Helmut’s question. “I found it most informative and entertaining. I can’t vouch for the veracity of everything Jordan told me. Some of the tales are just too outlandish.”
    Her breath caught in her throat. He didn’t believe her!
Why?
    Helmut chuckled. “I’ll admit that some of the fables about our local heroes are a bit farfetched.”
    “Farfetched indeed,” Reeves said.
    He left them at the end of the bridge, saying he preferred to walk the rest of the way to his hotel.
    “Do you think you’ll have any problems?” Jordan asked the young man anxiously.
    He smiled at her with cool confidence. “I think I can manage the shop in your absence, Mrs. Hadlock.”
    He was an employee of Helmut’s who worked in one of the offices as an accountant. Last night, when Helmut had brought her home, he had informed her that she was to meet him and Reeves for breakfast the next day.
    “We have quite an expedition planned. We’re going up on Pilatus—”
    “Helmut,” she interrupted. “I have a business to run. You and Reeves will have to get along without me tomorrow.”
    She was angry and upset with what had just happened on the bridge. Now she was being told she would have to suffer another day with the man who