RUNAWAY by Christie Ridgway Page B

couldn’t put his full weight on his feet, but there was another part of him that was obviously in fine working order. And he couldn’t help heeding its sudden, insistent call to action.
    Setting his teeth against the erotic ache, he reached over with his good arm and found her hand with his. She jumped a little at his touch, but he soothed her by brushing his thumb across the top of her knuckles.
    “Um, Owen?”
    He caressed her hand again. “Keep going. I’m listening.” I’m lying, but what the hell? Because he could tell her temperature was climbing and he could hear the way her breath was coming quicker in response to his hand on hers. This was the instant magic they’d made in Las Vegas. Toying with the cuff of the robe she wore, he pushed it farther up her armand let his fingertips drift after it, tracking a line from her wrist to the tender inside of her elbow.
    Her breath caught. He let his hand drift back, trailing it to her fingers and then back up again.
    Her legs made a restless movement, the edges of the robe opening to reveal her bare legs to a point just above her knees. His blood surged in his veins, as if she’d suddenly gone naked.
    His gaze traced the olive skin as if he were licking a line down her shin. Her legs moved again, and the robe revealed another few inches of Izzy’s thighs. Without thinking, he slid his hand around one of them, cupping the taut muscle on top and letting his fingers press against the sleek inner surface.
    He heard her swallow, then she valiantly continued with her sleep-inducing—hah!—lecture. “I think you’ll like this part the most,” she said. “He was an advocate for a simpler spelling system for the English language. At one point he considered writing his own name as M-E-L-V-I-L D-U-I. ”
    He moved his hand, stroking her leg now, and saw the way her thighs parted ever more. Under the pads of his fingers, he felt her telltale goose bumps.
    “Um, Owen?” she said again, her voice fainter this time. “Do you…Are you…What are you thinking?”
    Of only one thing, for good or for bad. Only one damn thing. “I’m thinking ol’ Melvil would completely approve,” he said, “when I tell you that I would like to H-A-V S-E-X. ”

    Izzy’s heart was beating harder than it had in those few seconds after she’d heard the crash of Owen’s lamp and made it to his bedroom to discover he was all right. Her skin was tingling from the slow washes of goose bumps rolling from the point where he touched her thigh. H-A-V S-E-X, her brain repeated.
    Desire had been pooling low in her belly from the instant he touched her hand, and at that thought—having sex with Owen—the heaviness there throbbed.
    “We shouldn’t…We don’t…But…”
    “Yeah,” he whispered, his hand still tracing mysterious patterns on her skin. “All that.”
    “Then why?”
    “Because it’s a long, dark night. Because I remember what it felt like to dance with you in Vegas, and I think we’ll do this dance well, too. Because I could do with a little human contact.” He rolled on his side, and he lifted his casted wrist so those fingers could brush the hair off her forehead. “Take your pick, Isabella.”
    His palm flattened on her thigh, and he leaned close to press his mouth briefly to hers. “Take your pick or say no. Whichever you want.”
    But it was never the way she wanted! She’d spent the last few years trying to make things her way after a childhood of being passed off and shuffled over, in a manner that made her feel she had to be quiet or accommodating or easy to get along with, whatever thenew living situation required of her. Only since she’d started her career in library consultation had she really been able to order her world the way that pleased her.
    And she’d never wanted to want a man like she wanted Owen Marston.
    But she did want him, and here he was, just inches away, his gentle touch sparking blazes along her nerve endings, like those signal fires