Nicole: Star Crossed Lovers (A Wish for Love Series Book 2) Read Free

separation had not dimmed her image and he was aware of the charge that thrilled his senses.  He closed his eyes and inclined his head.  Rays of the full moon observing the scene from above gleamed on his black hair . Nicole tensed, sensing danger nearby.  Her eyes, penetrating the darkness, caught the blue spark and she froze in her tracks.  Daniel felt her panic and stepped towards her, his superb, supple body moving to meet her startled gaze.
    Time had blurred but not erased Nicole's memory of the handsome figure and his animal magnetism.  A dark blue shirt, unbuttoned, covered the wide, muscular shoulders and exposed his chest.  Soft hair led downwards in a straight, thin line to disappear below the waist of the worn jeans.  His hips were narrow and hinted at the long muscles of his legs.  He was more magnificent than she remembered and her throat caught.  She had a barely controllable urge to touch the face she had once loved, but she stood motionless.  She looked silently at him, as though trying to roll back the years separating the man who stood before her from the man she had once known.  His mouth was no less sensual than before but now it was drawn in a hard line.  The day they met, she remembered, he had revealed two rows of white teeth in a smile that had captivated her.  But the most startling feature in his face were his marine blue eyes.  Nicole remembered their look, as clear and powerful as the depths of the sea.  Now, his eyes were the metallic gray of the ocean in a storm, and Nicole stepped back.
    The instinctive closeness she felt turned into a feeling of remoteness and reserve.  The beating of her heart threatened to deafen her and overpower the sound of the waves battering the coast.  She opened her mouth and closed it.  There was nothing she could, or wanted, to say.  What had once been between them could never return.  The pain, the insult and the heartache were now a distant memory.  She would not let him penetrate the armor she had so successfully built up over the years.
    "Hello Nicole," she heard his quiet voice borne by the slight breeze of the night.  He held out his hand and his fingers were dry and strong as they touched her cheek.  Daniel came closer and brushed away a lock of straying hair. 
    Nicole looked at him with frightened eyes.  She moved out of his reach. "Don't you dare touch me, Daniel," she whispered.
    The beginnings of a smile touched his mouth.  "So you do remember my name.  For a minute I was afraid you had completely erased me from your mind."
    From the tone of his voice it was clear to Nicole that not for a minute had he believed any such thing.
    He's having fun, Nicole thought, he enjoys torturing me.  But she would not let him get under her skin.  She would prove to him that she was no longer the young, naive girl he remembered.
    "You have a nerve," she heard herself saying, aware of the note of hysteria in her voice, "coming back here and frightening me so.  You are not at all welcome here."  She lifted her chin and stood taller, trying to appear cool and authoritative.  "Please leave," she said in a tone she hoped sounded gracious and commanding at the same time. 
    He hooked his thumbs in his pockets. 
    "As I recall, I was a very welcome guest here.  And if I try real hard, I can remember nights you begged me not to leave you at all."
    Nicole felt fatigue overcoming her.  "Then, Daniel, everything was different. I believed in you, trusted our love, thought all the dreams we dreamed together would come true.  But you chose to leave, to go without saying good-bye."  She remembered the short note he had left:  I love you for eternity. Wait for me!   No more.  She felt her self-confidence returning.  "If you've come back to ask for forgiveness I won't make things hard for you.  I forgive you.  I believe in fate.  We were obviously not destined for each other."
    "Forgive me?!"  he repeated unbelievingly.  He looked at her